Mass Emile
by Ranschaj
Summary: Emile survives the two zealots at the end of Reach, and after surviving Covenant onslaught, finds himself in the ME universe. Kick-ass picture is thanks to freejimmy on deviantart
1. A New Beginning

Emile looked down at the targeting screen on the mass driver.

_3..2..1!_ "That was for REACH!" Emile shouted as bits and pieces of a phantom fell from the skies of the very planet he mentioned. "Noble to Keyes! The pad is clear."

Emile looked down towards the pad where Six was just mopping up the last brute.

"Copy Spartans I'm on my way." The skull loving soldier waved to Six and thought, _Damn, I actually like that fucker!_

Just a few days ago, if you had told Emile if he would come to like the replacement for the previous Six, he probably would have been using your skull as grinding stone for his knife. But, nevertheless, Noble Four had come to respect, and even share a brothers bond with the hyper-lethal vector.

Emile watched as Six handed the package of to the captain, but soon noticed something large moving off to his right.

"Cruiser adjusting heading for the Autumn, Four I need fire on that cruise or we're not getting out of here!"

Four sighed as he adjusted his aim, "I have your window, sir." Just as he started moving the gun, _Looks like I'm gonna stay behind_.

It was true, there is no way a mass driver would punch through those shields, he'd have to wait to hit it in the gut as it prepared to glass the Autumn.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something. A phantom heading for the pad! The first pelican took most of the damage so Keyes would have a way out. Emile noticed it was headed for him next.

_The hell?!_ he thought, _they can't bring this gun down with that. _Then Emile spotted a familiar figure in the back. _Zealots!_

One landed in front of him on the window, thinking it had the advantage of surprise. Ironically the surprise was on him as 8 gauge buckshot tore through the glass and destroyed his shields. Looking up as it lay on the side rail, bleeding, it saw a terrifying visage of skull pointing it's shotgun in the zealot's mouth. The cold metal of the shotgun was the last thing it remembered.

Normally after a victorious ass whooping of a zealot, Emile would have some sort of zinger or badass one-liner, but Six's warning and the tell tale growl of another elite left no time for such nonsense. "Emile behind you!"

Entering an adrenaline induced condition known as "Spartan Time", things slowed down. Emile whipped out his titanium composite monomolecular kukri knife with his left hand and spun around. His right hand shot down and grabbed the field marshal's sword hand and yanked it towards himself as he spun to the left, his knife hand plunging into the marshal's brain from behind. Noble Four manage to get back to the gun controls in time to blow the retreating phantom to smithereens.

"Better get going Six there gonna need you out there."

"Four… I…"

"GO!" Emile roared into the com as he blew another banshee away. "Get out of here I'll make sure you escape!" As he continued providing cover, Emile saw Six get on the pelican and watched it take off.

"Looks like I'll be sticking with you Jorge, I'll never leave Reach either." Four whispered as he heard the Autumn's engines powering up. Emile finally had his shot as he saw the cruisers energy projector light up.

"This is for NOBLE!" The electric sounding thunder of the powerful mass driver sounded through out the canyon it was perched in as it slammed a metric ton slug straight through the cruisers plasma coils, crippling it. The once proud covenant vessel was riddled with explosions as it fell into the bay. The Pillar of Autumn roared to life and lifted into the sky as Emile dismounted the gun. He watched it fade into the purple sky, _Time for some revenge, give 'em hell Six_.

Hour's later after chasing and dispatching a couple brigades of elite minors and there underlings, Emile found himself at a UNSC research outpost. After a few minutes of rifling through the files in there, slipspace drives, ship schematics, research on plasma weaponry and wait… a forerunner outpost? He quickly downloaded all the files in there to his local copy of Dot.

"Dot, put the forerunner outpost on my HUD."

"Affirmative, Noble Four." Emile watched the waypoint appear on his HUD… forty miles away. "Mutha…"

After spending a few minutes cursing his fortune he started running. _Not a single hog, 'goose, even a single civvie vehicle I could have squeezed into, no, now I gotta run for two hours._

Sure enough two hours later a tired Emile arrives to cave leading to the forerunner structure, which was currently filled to the brim with what appeared to be a guard duty consisting of twelve grunts, five jackals, and three brutes, one of which, was a major. Still unseen, Emile took the grenade launcher off his lower back and fired!

And with that action Emile started down a path that would change him forever. The blast took out four jackals and three grunts who had clustered around a plasma battery, apparently arguing over who should have to carry it. The brute major roared orders to his subordinates and the two minors with him ran towards the origin of the shot, a cluster of trees and bushes spared from glassing mostly due to there proximity to the forerunner structure. As they approached it, there worst fears were realized as Demon with a skull on its face leaped out and blew the head off one brute and tackled the other one. One punch to the face was enough to stun the brute while the Demon brandished a wicked knife and plunged it into the brutes head.

After dealing with the two brutes, Emile whipped out his magnum and quickly shot the head off the last jackal while it was stunned, he shifted his fire to the nine grunts left, after he fired the last seven shots in the magazine, seven grunts were dead and the last two were fleeing. Emile remembered about the last brute just in time to receive its fist hammering his chest, knocking the Spartan on the ground. The major leapt atop the skull clad warrior trying to drive its own wicked, rusty, serrated knife into Emile's throat, only to have its blade diverted to the side by the Spartan's left hand as his right fist thundered into the major's jaw. The brute rolled off, stunned, and managed to look back as Emile found his kukri again and jabbed it into the brute's eye.

Emile could sometimes forget just how strong and fast brutes can be. But then again, they seemed to forget how stupid it was to charge a Spartan. Emile did a quick ammo count, with all the extra space his new rucksack on his lower back he could fit quite a bit. 50 shotgun shells, ten grenades for his launcher, and four more clips for his magnum. Figuring there were probably zealots in that forerunner structure, each equipped with very strong shields, he grabbed a plasma pistol and solicited as many grenades as he could.

Ten minutes of infiltrating into the cave he came across an obviously artificial cavern. At the other end of the cavern he noticed a zealot giving what must be an inspiring speech to two columns of elites and brutes. He noticed there was not a single minor among them or any grunts or jackals. Cursing his luck he ducked behind a conveniently placed rock, peeking over as he readied his grenade launcher he counted 40 enemies total. All higher ranking brutes and elites, five chieftains and zealots each, 10 ultras of each species and the remaining 20 were elite majors.

As Emile was watching the zealot did something to a suspicious gateway at the end and he saw what looked like a slipspace portal open up. _Fuck! Well whatever they're doing, it stop's here!_

Council Chambers, Presidium, Citadel.

Something weird was happening. The council was in the middle of listening to a volus ambassador drone on about why his species should have a seat on the council. The asari councilor Tevos was about to call for a recess when it happened. Some metal pieces slid out of openings in the wall and formed a gateway next to where the volus ambassador was. Then a blue-black portal opened up, alarming everyone. Curiosity getting the better of him the ambassador waddled a little closer… and was stepped on as a nine foot maroon figure stepped out of it.

Zealot Wurt'Tolamee looked down to see what he hit, and saw a pathetic little creature in a brown suit. After cleansing his sight of the worthless alien via energy sword Wurt activated the construct whose hardware he held in left hand activating the other gateways for his troops to come through. He watched as the holy portals activated and his most trusted elites and his grudgingly accepted brutes came through first. Some odd looking aliens with bony faces and some sort of markings started shouting and pointing odd weapons at him and his soldiers. Wurt barked the order to his troops to eliminate and annihilate these heretics. Soon the entire room lit up in a fire fight, with the odd smaller aliens quickly loosing without scoring a single kill on the covenant soldiers.

The three councilors looked on in shock at what they were seeing. C-Sec forces were quickly overwhelmed by the bigger than krogan aliens who came out of the portals. These new aliens boasted strong, white kinetic barriers, and even more surprising, directed energy weapons! Sparatus, the turian councilor started shouting into the comms for reinforcements. Tevos wasn't sure if it would be enough as even more started coming through. That was when Valern, the salarian councilor, got there attention with a shout. The other two councilors looked over in alarm to see him hunched over his terminal unconscious as the first and most decorated alien loomed over them.

After rending the other two apparent leaders of the meddlers unconscious, Wurt'Tolamee looked over the rest of the room, defenses were being set and all looked well, but shouldn't there be more? Ten elite majors were missing, as the last portal started to close, Wurt saw why.

Emile ran past the bloody corpses and into the portal… and came out landing on a brute majors back. After sharpening his kukri with the major's neck, Emile brought his shotgun to up and killed the shields of an elite ultra. This was undoubtedly the most enemies in one go Emile had ever faced, but then, it wouldn't be a Noble mission if it were easy.

Tevos, having feigned fainting, watched as what appeared to be a seven foot tall human in tough looking armor with a skull carved into the helmet, tear through the new aliens forces with what appeared to be bullets. _Bullets? No one has used bullets in centuries!_ Nevertheless he was pushing his way through the forces and after about ten minutes had apparently run out of ammo for his weapons and started using a odd looking DEW pistol and his fearsome knife to drain shields and slash necks.

Emile had fought hard and only had one enemy left, the leader. The zealot warbled something at him and tossed Emile an energy sword. The message was obvious, a sword duel. He ignited the blade as the seven hundred pound zealot landed with a loud clang on the walkway in front of him. Roaring a challenge the zealot charged as things seemed to slow to a crawl for Emile. Plasma met plasma as the two titans locked blades, thanks to the armor Emile outweighed the zealot by only fifty pounds, had he been a Two, it would have been a wider margin, but it was still enough as he forced the zealot back. As the elite reeled from the shove, Emile launched a series of strikes moving to fast for anyone else in the room to follow, but the zealot was no pushover with a blade. Emile was injured and tired, a dangerous combination when facing a sword wielding zealot.

Knowing he had to end this now, Emile feinted low and used the railing as a step ladder to launch up and over the zealot, who was over extended on a lung, and shoved his sword into the huge aliens back, killing it instantly.

With the fight over Emile walked down to the steps and sat down to take in his surroundings. He noticed something curious about some of the corpses lying around. The ones with weapons in there hands all wore blue and while some were human, there were other species there. _What the hell, who the fuck are they?_ Emile looked behind him to see a window; he got up to go check out where he was. What he saw was confusing to say the least. He appeared to be on a huge five pronged space station in a nebula.

"Stop right there!" Garrus Vakarian shouted at the huge… thing, in front of him. It turned around to look at him and what Garrus saw did not help him calm down at all. It appeared to be a giant human with a… skull carve on its face! "Don't move, or I'll be forced to fire!" What came out of the speakers on the helmet surprised and confused Garrus.

"Where am I?" And with that Emile felt every wound he had sustained in the past week, his constant running and fighting had made him tired and sleep was calling to him. He tried to fight it but it caught him and Noble Four collapsed on the ground asleep.

**I don't own Halo or the characters in it, either Bungie or 343 Industries does depending on who owns Reach now. Bioware owns Mass Effect and its characters.**

**Well hopefully a good start to my first fic. Had this idea running around in my mind where Emile survives Reach and ends up in the Mass Effect universe. He will be taking the place of Shepard. Yes I know, Emile isn't a leader! Well he is gonna learn how to be one, plus he is a Spartan, they are all leaders. **


	2. Where the Hell Am I?

**I don't own anything but the plot, everything else is Bungie/343i and Bioware.**

**I suppose I should ask you to review if it is worth your time. Criticism welcome, because I am not a very good writer and I know it.**

**In this chapter Emile is confronted by the Council, joins the SA and that is pretty much it. Not very much going on which is probably why it came out so fast. I'll probably wait until I start getting some feedback before I really get to the plot, and I do plan on the fact that Emile is taking Shepard's place have a huge effect on the Mass Effect plotline. Not sure what kind but hopefully this will keep you guessing as to what happens next.**

Garrus sighed in relief as the monster in front of him collapsed. He really didn't want to have to apprehend the giant, chances were he wouldn't have been able to not to mention this… human? had just saved the Council.

The Council! Garrus' head snapped up to where they normally stood and saw Valern slumped over his terminal possibly dead, hopefully unconscious, and Sparatus in a similar position. The only councilor unharmed appeared to be Tevos.

"Councilor! Are you unharmed?"

"Yes however my colleagues appear to be knocked out." Another sigh of relief from Garrus as he found out the councilors were indeed alive. The rest of the C-Sec officers began looking for other survivors, of which they found none, and helping the councilors with there injuries after waking them.

"Spirits, what is that?" a turian officer questioned Garrus as he pointed out the skull clad giant knocked out on the ground.

"I don't know, but we need to get him to C-Sec headquarters and have some medics meet him there!" Garrus ordered.

"Yes sir!" The turian signaled a human officer to help him carry the giant. They soon learned it would take much more than two, three, or even four non-biotics to carry a Spartan. After 20 excruciatingly exhausting minutes three asari officers managed to get him to C-Sec headquarters. Then after giving up trying to take the armor off, the medical team just applied medigel to the wounds they could see.

Meanwhile, inside the armor, UNSC "dumb" AI Auntie Dot was doing what protocol dictated it do while in an unknown potentially hostile environment, gathering data. Dot scanned for any computer terminal nearby to hack and found one on every soldier. The AI quickly hacked and downloaded the "Codex" off of an "asari's" "omni-tool" and found some information that would have been shocking had Dot been capable of feeling shock. As it was, Dot quickly assembled a group of theories about the situation it found itself in and finally settled on the alternate universe theory. The AI then began running simulations on what would come next, quickly settling on the likely outcome that this "Council" would wish to speak with SPARTAN Emile A239/Noble Four about his actions and began compiling the evidence required to support the theory Noble Four would have to present so as to make things go through smoothly. While on the subject of Noble Four, Dot ran a medical scan on him. It appeared that whatever was put into the wounds was beneficial, but he would still be unconscious for at least the next three hours.

Realizing that this would most likely not be fast enough to keep humanities relations with the Council from deteriorating as the Council would likely accuse the SA of keeping secrets, Dot allowed the "salarian" trying to access the armor video logs of Reach. That should convince the Council that the SA has nothing to do with Noble Four. While the SA may not be the UNSC, Dot was still programmed with ALL humanities best interests at heart.

The bodies had been cleared from the Presidium and all the councilors were patched up and curious as to exactly WHAT had happened in the past hour. After they reviewed the security footage of what happened they called the SA ambassador Donnel Udina and hammered with questions about this soldier, the aliens, and what other secrets humanity was hiding from the rest of them.

"Look, the Systems Alliance has never had any contact with either of these species, nor do we have anything in the Alliance that corresponds with the soldier asleep in C-Sec!"

"Perhaps your government is hiding things from you as well as the rest of us, ambassador!" Sparatus growled as Admiral Hackett made his way up to the Council. "Ah here comes an admiral! Tell me human, what have you been experimenting with while our backs are turned?"

"The Council has always been kept appraised of ALL of our operations, experiments, and developments, that soldier is not one of ours." Hackett explained, "Even if he was, you should be thanking him for pulling you out of the fire, he accomplished forty times what twenty C-Sec officers couldn't do once, kill these things."

"That does not excu-"

"Councilors we managed to get some video logs that, well, prove something." A Salarian came rushing up the stairs next to Udina and Hackett.

"Why are you so hesitant? What is on those logs?" Tevos inquired.

"Well, it's probably best if you just watched, we are still having trouble understanding it ourselves." The officer said.

"Very well display your findings" Valern ordered.

With a flash of his omnitool the holo-projector came online and it started with a video showing humans in similar gear to the soldier in C-Sec, in what appeared to be a transport vessel of some kind. A man's voice came over the audio, "Alright Noble, we got a downed relay station at Visegrad. We're gonna introduce ourselves to whoever took it out, the Kat's gonna get it back online." The Councilors, Udina, and Hackett watched in curiosity as this six man team made their way through the wrecked homes in the country side. They were surprised at the differences between what they saw in the video to what they knew human colonies to be.

Surprise soon came in waves as they saw the first contact with the Covenant ground forces. Seeing the large reptilian ones sent shudders down Tevos' spine. They watched the siege of Sword base by what they believed to be a cruiser or maybe a small dreadnaught; they watched the assault on the largest singular army amassed in one place they have seen, and experienced shock, awe and fear when they saw the Super Carrier floating in the sky. They watched in horror as massive dreadnaughts burned a city into the ground. There were missing bits after that and suddenly it showed the soldier walking through desert; they watched as he came across the research base, as he entered the forerunner structure, and finally as he engaged the Covenant and saved the council.

"I, take back, my earlier statements about the SA going behind our backs. They never could have hidden this, but it does beg the question, where does he come from?" Sparatus proclaimed.

"Those portals were obviously teleportation terminals. What concerns me is that they led here." Valern stated.

"Agreed we need to have these gateways dismantled," Tevos said, "though I believe C-Sec has already begun."

"So what do we do with the soldier down in C-Sec?" asked Valern, "I think it will be difficult to send him back, he likely has no idea where he is."

While the Council was discussing with the human representatives what to do with the interdimensional soldier, said soldier was currently waking up.

Emile blinked as he started to wake, the first thing he felt was a dull ache from various plasma burns. _Odd,_ he thought,_ they should still be burning like a bitch._ Then he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye, a woman came over and started flashing some orange thing over him. Emile couldn't put his finger on it but there was something weird about her, his tired mind tried to come up with a solution when he noticed it.

He leapt off the table and backed himself into a defensive stance. The blue alien seemed to be startled and incredibly terrified as she shouted for help. She backed away with her hands up and the two proceeded to have a stare down. Finally Emile broke the silence.

"What are you?!"

"Noble Four, please stand down she is non-hostile" Dot's voice sounded inside his helmet. "What?! No way! Aliens aren't exactly friendly the last time I checked!"

"Noble Four, I am currently uploading a data package to your neural implants."

Emile received the data and his mind, which runs about three times faster than a normal humans brain, quickly rifled through the codex Dot had given him. "Alright I won't kill 'em, yet. But if they do something off, they're dead!"

In the meantime three turians wielding assault rifles had showed up, and another turian came in, this one with dark face plates and white face markings and spoke up.

"You have been summoned before the Council, and don't worry about the weapons, we weren't sure what your reaction was going to be."

"Who are you?" Emile asked, thanks to Dot, he had a basic idea of what the council was.

"I am Executor Palin, who may I ask, are you?"

_Well I ain't givin' him MY name. _"SPARTAN Alpha 239."

"An odd name for a human, I'm guessing that is your designation?" Palin asked.

"It's all you're getting"

"I understand. Come with me the Council doesn't like waiting"

On the way to the Council, Emile was filled in on his "unique" situation. Honestly, Emile really wouldn't have cared until he was informed it was pretty much impossible to get back without another forerunner outpost with the same purpose. The likelihood of there being such, at a whopping zero percent. As he stood before the Council and read the lines Dot gave him, with his own personal flair of course, he pondered what would happen to him. Fortunately Admiral Hackett came up with the solution.

"He told us his purpose is the protection of humanity, he could join the Alliance. Any and all technological advances made because of him will of course be shared with the Council."

"Hm, while I don't particularly enjoy the idea of the Systems Alliance having a super soldier in their ranks, I don't really see another option" Sparatus conceded.

"Very well, we are in agreement, the Spartan shall go with the Systems Alliance, provided that is what he wants" Tevos added.

"Sure, why not, have to relearn everything 'bout the galaxy anyway, might as well do it with humans" Emile responded.

"Then this session, is adjourned."

With that over Emile quietly leaned over to Hackett, "Thank you, sir"

"Not a problem son, but before we go any further what is your name?" Hackett responded when they got in the elevator.

"Emile"


	3. Adjusting

**New chapter, hooray! This is what happens when one is bored out of their minds, finals are over, Xbox is at home, and I have listened to my iTunes for the past few hours and finally got bored of that.**

**Anyway Emile goes to Akuze, busts a cap in a thresher maw, and takes a vacation on Elysium. If you can't tell I'm trying to give Emile some time to get used to the ME universe and leading his team so when he reaches the rank of commander he won't be like "what the hell am I supposed to do! People tell ME what to do!" Anyway, enjoy.**

Emile sighed as he listened to the marines in the shuttle brag about past conquests whilst constantly trying to out do one another in their stories. _Marines, the same no matter WHAT universe you're in_.

Over the past year Emile had joined the Alliance military and quickly ripped through the N7 program like it was a basic workout class, and quickly went from a lowly warrant officer to lieutenant and second in command of a squad on their way to Akuze.

Commander Thompson, Emile's CO on this joyride, entered the troop bay of the shuttle craft and quickly silenced everyone. "Alright ladies, we have a downed relay outpost 50 clicks from the settlement outpost. We're gonna hoof it there cause the canyons don't let us get any closer. We're walking cross a plane called the 'Sea of Maws'."

Private Duncan, in Emile's opinion one of the more annoying marines in the outfit, called out to the commander, "why's that? Is it 'cause Alenko's girlfriend was last spotted opening her huge mouth there?"

"Shut your mouth Duncan, or I'll rip it out with my MIND!" Kaidan Alenko shot back, "Besides, at least Lisa's mouth is nothing compared to the gaping passage of your own mother!"

"Lock it down both of you!" Emile's voice pierced the air of the cabin silencing the two bickering marines. "Thank you LT, and it's called that, Duncan, because we've received reports of thresher maws." Thompson explained as the cabin shuttered when the shuttle touched the ground, "Alright let's go time's a wasting, lieutenant! You're on point!"

Emile nodded as he hopped out the latch, his heavy frame somehow making almost no sound as his feet hit the metal plating. After the tech heads had gotten through his armor, gleaning every last technical wonder off the MJOLNIR MKV, he had managed to get it back for combat tours and had rarely taken it off since. His skulled visage still scared almost everyone he had come across, though the squad he had been serving with the past few weeks had taken a liking to him and were only moderately nervous at his unchanging "face."

Dot had been almost immediately discovered by the techs and nearly caused a full blown panic attack amongst the Alliance officials over watching the process. Dot had finally been able to calm everyone down when it explained that it was in fact more like an incredibly complexly programmed VI than an AI. Dot currently was on Arcturus station, running the station and helping the Alliance techs create more sophisticated VI's.

Emile shook his head in the burning sunlight to clear his mind of thoughts about Dot. His MJOLNIR had received some upgrades after the techies were done with it. It turned out that kinetic barriers and plasma shields could in fact coexist, not to mention the medigel reserves in his armor. The upgrades made him an even more dominating walking tank on the battlefield, and that was not mentioning the upgrades to his shotgun and grenade launcher. His shotgun still looked relatively the same but had been upgraded with mass effect technology. Instead of pumping through shotgun shells, he would pump through thermal clips, with his gun holding eight clips at a time, one shot each. It was powerful enough to break a krogan's arm which makes it a good thing his arms are virtually unbreakable. His grenade launcher had also received and eezo boost to jack up it's range, whilst leaving the properties the same.

Emile broke off into a quick march towards the downed relay, leaving the marines to have to jog after him, "Lieutenant, you might want to slow down, I don't think you realize just how fast you are!" the commander called out. "Sorry sir, but maybe next time I go for a jog you lazy sons-a-bitches can join me, eh?"

"Aww, come on you get up at like 3a.m. to do that stuff though!" Duncan cried out.

"2a.m. actually but that's n-" Emile felt a rumbling through his feet, they were probably ten kilometers from the settlement with another forty till the relay.

"What, LT" Kaidan asked. Emile surged forward grabbing the three men and leaped back just as a monstrous worm tore from the ground and let out a massive roar.

"Shit! FIRE!" Thompson ordered, and the two Alliance marines started letting loose with there assault rifles, only causing minor discomfort for the beast. Emile let a shot with his launcher causing the monster to reel back and disappear underground. Emile tracked the maw on his motion tracker and watched in horror as another came into range and burst up directly beneath Thompson, swallowing him whole.

"COMMANDER! Shit! Alright, Alenko, Duncan start running for the relay, that's currently our only way to call for pick up, I'll distract the fuckas!" Emile barked.

With that Emile sprinted in a perpendicular path to the route to the relay firing his shotgun into the ground, causing the maws to redirect to him, also attracting ones from further off.

The first thresher maw burst from the ground about twenty feet in front of Emile and roared, spitting acid at where the seven foot tall human was. Emile leaped about ten feet from the monster, jumping over the acid, and used his kukri to gain a handhold on the beasts head as he put his shotgun against its tongue and fired. The creature wailed as its tongue was essentially cut off, rearing its head back letting Emile drop a souvenir from his days fighting Covenant right in its mouth. With a gulp the stupid beast swallowed the plasma grenade, giving the deadly explosive easy access to its brain. With a muffled boom the maw's head expanded in an odd direction and the monster slumped on the ground dead just as Emile landed 20 feet away with a purposefully loud crash.

The second maw saw to eat Emile the way it feasted on the commander, but underestimated just how fast Emile was. Using his knife as a handhold again, he pumped his shotgun and fired into its head, again and again. Three deafening bangs later, the second maw slumped over, brain matter leaking out of a large hole in its head.

Emile saw the third and final contact on his radar, _alright you fucker, come out and play._ With Emile still on top of the dead thresher maw, the third didn't really know where he was, so Emile came up with a plan. Throwing a chunk of thresher skull fifty feet from where he was, he saw the third beast break through the ground thinking it had Emile. Emile jumped down and sprinted towards the monster and leapt… and was swallowed whole by the multi-ton worm. Emile was in a bind now, firing his shotgun the remaining five times causing the beast to roar. Emile was unable to reach his remaining thermal clips, so he started slashing with his kukri at vital organs he could reach. The acid in it's stomach was doing some serious damage to his shields and eventually leaked onto his armor, but it would take more than that to get some serious damage on the armor.

Eventually, Emile felt the shudder that signified the death of his third kill. He oriented himself and started cutting his way up and out. After a few minutes of slashing with an increasingly dulling kukri, he'd have to sharpen that soon, he toppled out the top of the dead maw. Looking around he saw the stunned faces of Corporal Alenko and Private Duncan. They had found an abandoned Mako in the desert and came back for him, but he ended up not needing the help.

"Did you get the relay up?" Emile panted. "uuuuh… Not yet sir, we came back for you when we found the Mako." Kaidan responded.

"Alright well let's go." After they had been picked up by an Alliance frigate, Emile was told he was in command of the squad, and they should head to Elysium for leave while they searched for a replacement. Emile wanted to reject the idea of shore leave, and argued vehemently against it with Admiral Hackett, it got to the point where the admiral had to order Emile on shore leave.

Two days after getting the order from Hackett, Emile found himself carrying a drunken Duncan home while leading a slightly less, but very inebriated Kaidan, by the hand back to the barracks. "Come on Emile, why didnnttttt… didnnntttt… hiccup, drink wish ushh?" Kaidan slurred.

'_Cause I'm not a total idiot!_ Emile's thoughts raged on until he noticed some odd lights descending on Elysium City. "What the hell?" He watched closely till his enhanced eyesight pick something out on the side of the ships descending.

"SLAVERS!" Emile sprinted towards the nearest security bunker, which he noted the position of as soon as he set foot on this god forsaken vacation, and threw the two inebriated marines in there and grabbed an avenger assault rifle off the rack nearby. He sprinted back out into the chaos. "Get to the bunker!" For not the first time, Emile felt out of his element not wearing his armor. He sprinted through the city getting the civvies into the bunker and taking out slavers by the bucket load.

Although this was majorly a human colony, he had to constantly remind himself every time he saw an alien without a uniform, that they weren't the enemy. He would have pondered over the odd feeling he got every time ushered an asari or a turian civilian into the bunker, but right now he had some batarian slavers to slaughter.

After an hour of rounding up civilians, Emile noted that he was needed to defend the bunker, and thanks to his drunken cohorts, he'd have to do it himself. The batarians were advancing on the bunker. So it was up to Emile, an out of place super soldier with no armor, no shields, and one thermal clip for his assault rifle, and of course his kukri on a sheath on his hip which he never left, to save everyone in the bunker behind him.

Ten hours of salvaging thermal clips off of dead slavers, learning the various functions of his omnitool like incinerate and overload, and sharpening his kukri on the skulls of his victims, Emile had the batarians on the run. Emile chased them off to there frigates, stopping by his quarters to check on his armor and grab his grenade launcher, and disabled the navigation systems and thrusters with an EMP grenade. Using his newfound understanding of tech, he hacked the computer of the frigate after clearing it of slavers with a salvaged shotgun and his kukri.

An hour later the Alliance fleet managed to show up to a very tired Emile and hundreds of dead slavers. And a very grateful city. With the information Emile managed to download off the frigate, the Alliance was able to plan a retaliation strike on Torfan. Emile requested to be a part of the strike team but was shot down by Alliance Command. Command was concerned that with mild xenophobic tendencies displayed by Emile in the past would lead to overreaction on his part if he struck there.

When questioned on the whereabouts of his two teammates during what has been dubbed the Skyllian Blitz, Emile lied about the state of his two teammates, stating that they were the last line of defense for the bunker should any get past him. As a result both Emile and Kaidan were promoted, to commander and lieutenant respectively. Duncan was also promoted and led his own team against the slavers on Torfan, unfortunately during the assault he was gunned down, but one of his subordinates, Private Jenkins, managed to impress Alliance Command during the raid by completing the objectives after his CO was killed.

Two months passed by and eventually all three soldiers would wind up serving on the same ship under Captain Anderson. The ship they would serve on was designed by turians and humans with some experimental technology they gleaned from Dot's archives.

The Normandy.

**Alright that should give Emile enough time to not completely hate and distrust every alien he comes across. I particularly enjoyed writing about the thresher maws and describing how Emile killed them. The Normandy will be somewhat different from the ME version. It will have the eezo core but also an experimental slipspace drive, energy shields, and… a plasma cannon? :p Still wondering if I should start to incorporate some plasma weaponry when Emile becomes a Spectre and has access to the experimental weaponry.**

**Review please. Don't want to write what people won't read.**


	4. Robots, Zombies, and Rogue Spectres

**I'm on a roll I think, mostly cause I'm bored out of my mind. Usually to pass the time I read fanfiction, but none of my favorite stories have been updated in a while. ! **

**Oh well, anyway, EDEN PRIME! EDEN PRIME! Emile kicks ass on Eden Prime and uses super awesome knife skills to perhaps save someone's life?**

_Captain David Anderson of the Normandy: Logbook; My new XO has certainly been making a mark on my crew. First impressions aren't everything, but when that skull on your helmet greets you, it stays in your mind. Most of the crew was scared stiff of him, but at least the young man gives them a chance to work of there emotions. Just before a crewman's shift starts he has to run at least 2 miles in laps around the cargo hold. The marines have it even worse, 5miles every morning and then they have to spend the rest of the day sparring with their commander. At least Emile takes his armor off to work out with the men, though he still beats the teams of five that try to attack him at his command. Even with the harsh conditions, his somewhat lax attitudes about regulations actually earn him some likeability amongst the men. He told me on his first day that he'll never see himself as a leader, now a week later, I can safely say that everyone on this ships sees him as nothing but. And even if I'm wrong, I'll have the fittest crew in the galaxy._

_Of course that is only fitting considering the new ship under my command. The Normandy is a beauty. Sitting at nearly 300 meters, she can still go around undetected through any system we choose thanks to the black ablative paint on the hull and the Heat Emission Sinks. You can't read her heat signature and you can't see the black beauty threading through space. Even if you could detect her, she has the most advanced fire power I've ever seen. That Dot that came with Emile came up with weapon systems that don't need eezo, which cut the cost of this project down to nearly petty sums of credits. A rail cannon that runs the length of the belly of the Normandy, a mass driver Dot called it, fires slugs that are simply to big for most kinetic barriers to handle. Then we have weapons on the wings that don't even register the kinetic barriers of an enemy ship. Plasma cannons, four of 'em, experimental to the extreme considering Dot wasn't even sure they would work. We tested them out two day's ago on an asteroid belt that _was_ orbiting Sol system._

_And the weapons aren't the end of it. Combine this fire power with the new fusion reactor, and this ship could spell doom for entire fleets. Then there is the new FTL drive. After we picked up our turian spectre Nihlus, who was immediately challenged to spar with my XO, we engaged the slipspace drive for Eden Prime. It's… eerie, not being able to see the stars in space, but we're making damn good time, we'll be arriving in an hour rather than 12._

Joker was looking out at the great expanse of black before him. It made him uneasy at first, now it just made him bored. No course corrections, no piloting, no skill necessary. Dull, but at least they would be arriving in…

"3…2…1… Successful jump achieved, no deviation from destination, heat sinks engaged, going to FTL, ETA to Eden Prime one hour." Joker stated with rare professionalism, strictly for the logbook of course.

"Did you say, 'no deviation'?" Nihlus, the turian spectre, said with disbelief evident in his voice. "Uh did I stutter?" Joker shot back.

Nihlus huffed indignantly and walked off. "I hate that guy" Joker muttered under his breath. "I'm sure the feeling is mutual, little man."

"Hey commander" Kaidan called from the copilot seat, "what's going on with the spectre on board?"

Emile shrugged and said, "I'm sure it's a bunch of super secret bullshit, hey Joker, I didn't see you jogging 'round the cargo bay before your shift started. What's up with that?" Joker smiled conspiratorially, but before he could respond…

"Joker! Tell the commander to meet me in the comm. room." Captain Anderson's voice rang through the cockpit. "Gotcha, brace yourself Captain, Nihlus is headed your way."

"I'm already here." Nihlus' voice came through the comm. Joker's face immediately shot through the surprise to embarrassment, then back to his usually cocky smirk. "You get that commander?"

"Just once, Joker, just once could you be less socially awkward than me?" Emile muttered, "dumbass. Yeah I got it." As he walked away he heard perhaps the only friend he's really made, Kaidan Alenko, chastise Joker for his usual oafish behavior. He passed Navigator Presley and whispered over the other man's shoulder, "Might want to wrap up your conversation with Adams, Presley." The older man turned red and quickly ended his conversation with Adams down on engineering. As Emile approached the comm. room he heard Duncan's replacement, Jenkins, call out.

"Hey commander! When do you think we'll get to see some real action? I'm itching for something to fight, other than you of course."

"I sincerely hope your kidding corporal, it's bad enough I have a bunch of marines walking in with bruises, I doubt the enemy will be as kind as Emile." Doctor Chakwas, perhaps the only person not put off by the skull on his helmet and his abrasive personality.

"Don't be the hero kid, you proved yourself on Torfan. You don't need to take risks and end up a dead hero. And the doctor's right, the enemy won't be as kind as me. See you guys later I gotta go." With that Emile entered the comm. room to find the only occupant is Nihlus. "Ah Emile, I was hoping you'd get here first, give us a chance to talk."

"yah, we ain't on a first name basis turian. Where's the captian." Emile responded.

"Captain Anderson will be here in due time, but first I wanted to talk to you, Commander."

"Aight, you have my attention, what about?"

"Eden Prime, I want to know what you know about its defenses. How safe you think it is." Nihlus began.

"You threatening us, little bird boy? 'Cause I find it hard to believe that this is mere curiosity on your part. You want a straight answer, you tell me why it takes a spectre to go on a shakedown run." Emile demanded. He had had enough of all this smoke and mirror's crap which, honestly, wasn't fooling a damned person aboard this ship.

"A crude vocabulary but your right, this is not a shakedown run. Ah, here's the captain now." Emile looked behind him to see that indeed, Captain Anderson was coming into the room. As he stopped just short of the towering wall of armor and muscle and the turian spectre he explained why Nihlus was here.

"A prothean beacon, Captain? We had to send the most advanced ship in the galaxy to pick up some ancient artifact? Seems to be a bit over kill." Emile was suspicious that there was more going on.

"We picked up Nihlus, and we're going with the Normandy because of you, Commander." Emile's mind raced, why because of me? Most people assume that, because of the jackass personality he sometimes displayed and his skull visor, that he's not very smart. In truth Emile was probably one of the smartest sentient beings alive. A  
Spartan's training doesn't end at the battlefield. His, and every SPARTAN III, mentor Kurt-051 made sure they received the full academic experience, and contrary to popular belief, Emile was one of the best students. The same way he strived to be the best at everything he did. Using his unnoticed intelligence he quickly put the pieces together.

"You put my name up for the specters, didn't you Nihlus. That's why the Normandy is going, your not just putting her through the paces, Nihlus is putting me through mine."

Both Nihlus and Captain Anderson struggled to contain their shock at Emile's intuition. Nihlus managed to recover and responded in the affirmative, "Though the bruises all over my body prove your combat skills to be easily good enough for the specters" Nihlus quipped.

"Captain! We're receiving a distress call from Eden Prime, putting it on screen now!" And with that the atmosphere immediately went into war mode. Emile soaked in every detail he could about the recording, memorizing faces, terrain, and the bullets that appeared to come from the enemy. Suddenly the audio filled with a deep… noise that appeared to be coming from the ship descending into the picture frame. It then cut out, Captain Anderson called for another look at the ship in the recording, but Emile's eidetic memory easily called up the image into his minds eye.

Captain Anderson cut off his thinking process, ordering him to get Alenko and Jenkins down to the cargo hold and geared up. Ten minutes later and the Normandy, in full stealth mode, snuck down and dropped off Emile and his team, after dropping Nihlus off somewhere else, big mistake in Emile's opinion.

Once on the ground Emile ordered eyes up. After ten seconds they came across there first enemy… "They're gasbags, Commander! Harmless!" okay maybe not enemies. As they continued on they came across a small dip with convenient chest high rocks scattered throughout. A trap if Emile had ever come across one.

"Jenkins, Alenko! Cover me we're gonna spring this trap!" Before they could ask how he knew it was a trap, Emile vaulted over a rock and sure enough, a geth trooper was crouched behind it. Wasting no time, Emile shoved his kukri knife straight through the top of its head right behind the flashlight face, and watched the hydraulic fluid came spraying up. As soon as Emile had done this a group of drones flew in and opened fire on Emile. They didn't get far as accurate fire from the two marines at the top of the valley ripped right through them. Emile shouldered his shotgun and blasted the face off another geth trooper that sprang from cover, then sprinted forward, ramming his fist through the final trooper's chest, pulling the wires from its "spine" back through, killing the geth and spraying Emile with its fluids.

"Whoa, did… did that just happen?" Jenkins whispered over to Kaidan. Kaidan just smirked, knowing that it would take a while before anyone got used to the superhuman feats Emile likes to pull in close quarters.

Continuing on up the valley they were met with more drones. Emile's Carnifax hand cannon not even letting the two marines get a shot off on the four drones. At this point Jenkins was wondering why they were necessary. Over a small rise, Emile shot his hand up to halt the two marines behind him. What he saw was a female marine he recognized from the video running from two geth drones. She managed to kill both of them as she fell behind some cover, that's when Emile noticed the corpses on the spikes around them and… THERE! Two geth shock troopers were about to put some other poor bastard on a spike.

Ashley Williams was having one of the worst days of her life. First her unit was killed, then she gets chased across the colony, now she was watching in confusion as what she thought might be geth were doing something to some poor colonist. They didn't get far as a flash of silver came through and an ugly, large knife buried itself in the spinal cord of one geth unit causing an overload in its systems, killing it. What happened next was frightening. "COME GET SOME!" A huge figure flew through the air and crushed the unfortunate geth. The figure asked the colonist if he was okay, but when the colonist looked up at the figures face he fainted. When it turned around Ashley saw why, its face was a skull carving that sent chills through her spine. But she saw the silver leaf that signified his rank, so she sucked it up and saluted what was most likely a deranged lunatic.

"Ashley Williams of the 212, sir! Are you in charge of this outfit?" Emile could smell the fear and confusion radiating off this woman, but he also recognized the resolve in her voice. She almost gave off the same vibe Six gave off whenever he spoke. Quiet conviction.

"Relax, can you tell me what happened here?"

"Geth attack sir, at least that's what I think they are." Ashley was uncomfortable jumping to such a bold conclusion but what Emile said next just proved her right. "Yeah they match the description; I'd say your right Williams. Where's the beacon?"

"Dig sites just up ahead but I think the research team already moved it to the space port. At least that's in the same direction, sir" _Good_. Emile thought, _something finally went right on this mission._

"Nihlus where are you?" he barked into the comm. The response was almost immediate.

"I'm moving up to the space pot."

"Alright, the beacon might be there according to a marine we found. Keep an eye out, Four out."

"Four? Ah never mind I'll keep and eye ou… Saren? I'll call you back Commander." _Who the fuck is Saren? Ah, who fucking cares._ "Alright Williams, follow us."

It wasn't long till more geth came out to play, Williams proved her self to be one hell of a she-hound with an assault rifle. Emile's scarred lips twisted into a smirk, _just like an un-augmented, female Six_, he thought privately, _she'll be a good addition to the crew if Anderson lets her._ They came upon the dig sight and it was apparent the beacon wasn't there. Quickly moving up the hill they came across more spikes with people on them.

Emile didn't like this. Why put people on spikes? What purpose does it… oh. His train of thought was interrupted as the spikes descended and husks of the people once on them started running for his group. BANG! BANG! The two husks fell to the ground with chunks of there bluish bodies sprayed across the grass. Emile ignored the possible survivors in the ugly ass houses, _seriously?! These ugly box homes is paradise?_ They were safe and he didn't need to deal with them.

As the space port came into view so did, what was monstrous to the three regular marines, ship. "Things barely a cruiser and scares the shit off these pussies" Emile muttered. "What was that commander?" Williams questioned. "Nuffin'" he replied slipping back into his typical slang, and aggressive voice for a second. They made there way down the hill to the space port. Emile was enjoying himself, finally something to kill! Unfortunately, the enemies were always dead before he really got going though.

At the space port Emile found a wounded Nihlus propped up against a crate, applying medigel to a gunshot on his shoulder.

"Nihlus, what the hell is going on!?"

"I'm not, ow, sure. I thought I saw a fellow Spectre I recognized but as soon as I shouted his name… he disappeared and these geth popped up. Took a couple of shots, I'm not good for the rest of the mission. The beacon should be up ahead past the trams."

"Alright we'll get it, Jenkins! Stick here with Nihlus make sure he gets back to the Normandy." As Emile walked past some crates he noticed some blood flowing past the crates. He checked and found a dead dockworker, bullet through his head. Emile went around the corner, shotgun up, and blasted two geth shock troopers off the walkway. Williams and Kaidan covered him as geth drones tried to get some shots onto him. Emile, rather than use the stairs, vaulted over the walkway and smashed his half ton frame into the geth destroyer, killing it instantly. A flurry of knife slashes and hard punches turned the group of geth around him into piles of scrap metal. Kaidan had to smack Williams in order to get her attention back so they could scrap the geth trying to creep up on Emile while he was in "the zone".

After the slaughter Ashley whispered to Kaidan, "What. Exactly. Is. He?" Kaidan smiled and said, "A Spartan."

Emile was frustrated. It wasn't that he didn't mind how easy it was to kill the geth, but they could have at least made up for it in numbers. Then he saw the numbers they had coming up. At least 20 troopers that he could see poked their heads out from various hiding holes. _Aw, FUCK YA!_

"Commander, they've got bombs set up around the place!" Kaidan said to get his attention. "Yeah take care of those would you? Williams, cover Kaidan, I'm gonna have some fun!"

After issuing his orders Emile jumped to the left side of the walkway above them, hoisting himself up, he saw his kinetic barriers taking damage. A smile worked its way to his face. Shotgun in hand he quickly removed the top half of several shock troopers before he had to reload. Instead of doing something boring like reloading, he flung his shotgun into the face of a trooper, causing it to fall backwards onto the tracks killing it. Emile caught the shotgun and slapped it onto his back, whipping out his hand cannon and kukri, the remaining fourteen troopers were quickly spraying hydraulic fluid all over the place, and Emile.

Meanwhile, Kaidan and Ashley were disarming the bombs spread throughout the space port. As Ashley put down a curious geth trooper turning around the corner, she asked Kaidan again about the mysterious commander she found herself saddled with. "Well all I was ever told was that his origins are classified. But he does make one hell of a XO on the Normandy."

"Classified? What is some sort of weird experiment? I mean-BANG, another trooper hit the floor- he did refer to himself as a number earlier."

"I don't know. Got it one more bomb to go around the corner, let's go. He never really talks about-BANG, BANG- himself. There it is, cover me."

"Gotcha… OH MY GOD!" Williams exclaimed. "What!?" Kaidan yelled as he deactivated the last bomb.

"HE JUST THREW A GETH LIKE A SOFTBALL!"

"Oh. Yeah he does that stuff all the time. Not specifically with geth, usually slavers like at the Blitz." Kaidan explained. "Wait, he's the hero of the Skyllian Blitz? The guy who held off thousands of batarians?"

Suddenly a shadow covered both of them, Ashley looked up to see a skull looking down on her, "It was hundreds, not thousands Williams. Beacon is secure, the nukes?"

"Disarmed, sir." Kaidan responded. "Good let's get that beacon."

When they got there the beacon was giving off a weird glow, Ashley approached it then was suddenly lifted into the air. Emile immediately grabbed her and through her out of harms way but was caught in the gravity well. It attempted to lift him, but it wasn't built to hoist a half ton of death personified. Emile struggled as images were burned into his mind, death, destruction, and… _Reapers._

**Yay Emile pwns geth! As for the people asking me who I'm going to pair Emile with, I don't know. You tell me, my motto for this story has been, don't wanna write something that ain't gonna be read. So give me some ideas in the reviews.**


	5. Evidence

**Yeah I'm guessing the super fast updates aren't surprising a single person anymore. And the answer to your question is no, I don't have a life. I make Spartan II's look like social butterflies. I also forgot to ask, what do you think about the Normandy's stats? Did I make it too big? Too overpowered? And trust me the Collector's ain't killing this thing.**

**Well in this chapter Emile deals with politicians, corrupt C-Sec officials, and assassins. Poor, poor Citadel, it has no idea what's coming. On the bright side he does become a Specter, or Spectre, not sure.**

The beacon exploded rocking Emile to his back. Darkness threatened to consume him as his mind painfully sifted through the message. Finally he succumbed to the darkness. Ashley and Kaidan immediately rushed to his side.

"Normandy, the beacon is a no go, but the commander is unconscious. We need evac." Kaidan shouted into the comm. link. "Shouldn't we try and move him to a more accessible area for the Normandy?" Ashley asked.

"Ummmm, you can try, but good luck moving him. We're gonna have to wait for the Normandy's heavy lifting equipment." Kaidan explained.

Plenty of huffing, puffing, and the whine of hydraulics later, Emile was loaded into the Normandy cargo bay. Doctor Chakwas came down to the cargo bay to confirm whether or not he was even alive. While he did have odd brain wave patterns, Doctor Chakwas, to the relief of everyone on board, confirmed he was indeed alive. Finally after eight hours, Emile started to stir.

"Doctor, I think he's waking up!" Ashley grabbed Chakwas attention as Emile pulled himself up to a sitting position. "How are you feeling Commander?" the doctor questioned.

Shaking his head rapidly, Emile replied with a scholarly and deep, "whuh? Uhm, yeah I… 'mfine." Shaking her head Chakwas held up three fingers, "How many soldier?"

Gaining more clarity by the second, and realizing he had a reputation as a jackass to keep he replied, "Three fingers that I suggest you get out of my face." While most doctors would have been insulted by the rude answer, Chakwas just chuckled, "You're fine."

"No Miss Chakwas, _you're_ fine," Emile quipped right back, "but in all seriousness I should probably report to the Captain."

"Easy now he's on his way down here and I have some questions. While you were taking a snooze on the deck plating, I detected some unusual brain wave. Did you have any unusual dreams?" Emile's brow furrowed even though no one could see it, "Yeah death, destruction, and something called Reapers. I… I think it came from the beacon."

"Your dream came from the beacon?" Ashley asked. "I know it sounds super weird, but I remember all this stuff from before I was knocked out, like the beacon was trying to burn the stuff into my brain." Emile responded, "It's probably nothing but I should tell the Captai- oh, hey Cap!"

"How's my XO doing soldier?"

"Heh, ready to go, just a bad dream sir." Anderson then said, "I don't know son, if you think it came from the beacon then the Council should probably know about it. If you don't mind Doctor, Chief, we're going to need to talk in private. Come with me Commander."

In the elevator on the way up to the comm. room, Captain Anderson got the conversation started, "I won't lie to you Emile, things look bad, the beacons destroyed and the only lead is Nihlus supposedly spotting Saren at the scene."

"Well, my creds are going to Saren being the one responsible, judging by your past experiences with him. I mean, framing you for a botched mission just to keep humans out of the specters? Not to mention a crack at whatever that beacon was holding."

"Well you got the beacons message too didn't you?" Emile pondered Anderson's question, "I ain't sure I got the whole thing though, the message seemed incomplete, like someone scratched a CD."

"CD?"

"Never mind, relic of another time I guess." _Not even the old man Anderson knows what a CD is? Ridiculous._ "I think we should be getting some evidence to convict Saren, before we even go to those Council pricks with our claim. Their best operative a traitor, you know they don't want to hear it."

"Well I'm not sure I'll be able to convince Udina to hold off on the accusations, but I'll do what I can. You should check with Harkin, he's a C-Sec officer, sleazy and most likely getting drunk in a stripper bar called Chora's Den, but, he does know plenty of things he shouldn't."

"Alright, we should be close to the Citadel by now, I'll go tell Joker to bring us in, then I'll track down Harkin." Emile walked out of the comm. room through the armory, and walked down the CIC to the cockpit. "Joker, we there yet?"

"I swear if someone asks me that one more time, I will turn the ship around. Seriously, I'm just about to bring us in, good God!" Ashley and Kaidan's eyes shot up at this outburst but Emile just smirked behind his helmet, he loved torturing the diminutive pilot. He watched as the Normandy slid next to the huge mass relay, blue sparks shot out and latched onto the Normandy. As far as Emile understood it, it was an eezo current coursing through the ship, lightening the mass to negative numbers, as the magnetic rail shot the ship light-years away in an instant.

The Normandy arrived in a flash of light at a purple and pink nebula, soon a large, five pronged space station appeared out of the nebula. As the Normandy approached, Nihlus, who had recently gotten out of the med-bay, pointed out a flower like shape nearby, "There, the Destiny Ascension."

"Whoa! Look at the size of that thing!" Williams exclaimed, obviously impressed. "yeah well size isn't everything."

"That thing has the biggest guns in the Citadel, Flight Lieutenant." Nihlus spoke condescendingly towards Joker. "Yeah but the Normandy, has the most powerful. Those plasma cannons on the wings? Destroyed an entire asteroid belt." Joker immediately shot back.

Before it could go any further Emile put the hammer down on the glorified cock fight, "Girls, girls, your both just hideous. Now stop talking and bring us in Joker. Williams, Alenko, you guys are accompanying me on the Citadel."

"Well where are we going sir?" Williams questioned, though just a few minutes later she wished she hadn't. "A titty bar."

20 minutes later, and an incredibly cramped cab ride later, the team arrives just outside Chora's Den. "Alright next time you can take a cab by yourself you gargantuan asshole!" Ashley suddenly blushed even more than she already was. _Oh God I'm yelling at a superior officer._ In order to fit in the cab, Ashley had to sit on Emile's lap, which of course led to a series of jokes made by both men in the automated cab.

"Relax Williams, next time I'll get in first and Kaidan can sit in your lap, right LT?" Kaidan scoffed at Emile but quickly suggested that they restrict themselves to elevator rides from now on. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea, wouldn't do for Ashley to be court martialled for inappropriate conduct towards a superior officer, eh Cheeks?"

"ME!? Wait did you just call me Cheeks?" Emile immediately froze, _I don't give nicknames, 'cept for the big man but he was my… friend._ "Uh, yeah, guess I did."

"Ooookay, if you two are done blushing at one another I thought we came here for a mission?" Kaidon couldn't help but chuckle, he considered Emile a good friend ever since Akuze, when they lost their previous commander, so he knew about Emile's nicknames and their significance, though Emile usually keeps Kaidan's nickname on the down low… "Shut it, Elvis, let's go." _Damn,_ thought Kaidan. The nickname came from Kaidan's apparent similarity to Elvis Presly.

On the short jaunt over to Chora's Den, Emile smiled as his revenge and evasion worked perfectly, Williams was now preoccupied with Kaidan's nickname and teasing him about it. As they approached the walkway to Chora's Den, Emile noticed a couple of turians with sniper rifles in hand. "There he is, Saren said take him out, two shots at once should do it." Anyone else would never have been able to hear what they said but Emile's augmented ears and a sensitive microphone on his helmet picked it up and recorded it. _Perfect, maybe not what we need, but Saren's digging himself quite the hole_.

He watched them line up the shot, keeping a careful eye on the oblivious marines behind him, making sure they wouldn't be hit when he dodged. BANG, BANG! To the common eye, Emile was in one place, then suddenly flying over the walkway towards two unfortunate turian assassins, he landed on the railing, crushing it underfoot. The two turians looked up in horror at the skull carved into the visor, a terrifying last image as Emile collided there heads together, knocking them out.

"Kaidan if you please, call a C-Sec squad down here to arrest these suckas, tell 'em they'll be the poor bird boys hog-tied in the corner." After Kaidan gave an affirmative of the order, Emile got to work. Soon enough they were back on track.

"Commander? Was it necessary to hog-tie them?" Ashley asked. "Well Cheeks (Don't call me that)… noted, you can never be to sure, besides it, was… fun, wow." Emile commented on the very first sight that greeted the trio.

"You know we've gone so far as a species, in terms of distance, just to see girls shaking there ass on a stage." Kaidan coughed and responded to Ashley, "Well it's a cultural experience, you know, because of the-"

"Soak in the sights later we gotta find Harkin… ah there he is." Emile quickly stormed over to Harkin who immediately recognized Emile from the Council attack he helped clean up one year ago, "Hey if it isn't old skully, I remember you. Man can't believe your luck, sucked into stopping the murder of the entire Council." This immediately caught the ears of both marines.

"Commander?" Emile put the brakes on this discussion with a backhand for Harkin, not a hard one of course, and an "it's classified" for the marines. Harkin was about to make a scene about it but Emile just picked him up by the scruff of his neck and started dragging him out of the bar. A krogan bouncer who was arguing with some other krogan was about to stop Emile but a quick shoulder shove pushed the krogan right on his ass, to the laughter of the other krogan.

Outside the strip club, Emile shoved Harkin against the wall and barked, "I need information on Saren, do you have anything or not?"

Practically pissing himself at what appeared to be a very angry skull faced demon, "I don't have anything-" he squealed a bit as Emile applied more pressure on his chest. "Please!" he panted, Emile let up just a little, "I do know a guy who does, he's a turian, really hates Saren, he's been looking into him for years now. Please man just let me go!"

Dropping Harkin to the floor he managed to get Garrus' location from the drunk. His team double timed it to the free clinic on this level just in time to walk in on a hostage situation. "Don't MOVE! Or the doctor gets it." Emile saw Garrus sneaking around and knew he'd need a clean shot on the thug. "Let's not do anything rash now." Emile moved in a way that caused the thug to separate his head from the doctors for just a moment, which was all Garrus needed. BANG! The thug slumped over dead and Emile leaped across the small rail to absorb the shots for the doctor. Three deafening booms of Emile's oversized shotgun later, and the back half of the clinic looked like someone had splattered red paint over the room.

"Perfect timing, gave me a clear shot at the bastard!"

"Yeah, good shot. Doc, you okay?" Emile wasn't so sure about compliments from an alien.

"Yes, I'm okay, thanks to the both of you." The doctor whose name according to the nametag Emile saw was Chloe Michelle.

"No problem Doc, but I'm here for Garrus." Emile saw the confusion on the turians face, which was when Emile was able to place him from memory. Garrus was the first turian Emile ever spoke too. Placing that aside for now he focused on Garrus, "I need information on Saren, I hear you're the guy to go to."

"Why are you after Saren?"

"He went rogue, attacked a human colony." Emile was not good at reading turian faces but the eyes said it all. Garrus' first reaction was surprise, then happiness, and finally business.

"I knew it! I always knew he was a shatha!" _A what?_ "Good thing you're here then, I'm on the trail of a quarian who arrived in the last few hours with proof Saren was a traitor. Doctor Michelle, did you see a quarian female come through recently?"

"Uhm, yes actually, she came in with a gunshot wound, I cleaned it and then she asked if I knew any contacts for the Shadow Broker." _\Okay, I clearly gotta step up my vocabulary._ "So I told her about the owner of Chora's Den, Fist."

"That's going to be a big problem, Fist works for Saren now."

"Good to know let's go have a chat with Mr. Fist." Emile turned to leave but Garrus spoke up, "Hey, I want to come with you, I need to see this case through to the end."

Emile turned to regard the turian, "Why should I let you on my team? You're a cop, not a soldier, and this just turned into a military operation."

"I'm a turian, I have military training so that excuse isn't valid, and I dare you to find a better shot than me." Garrus challenged. Emile's thoughts immediately turned to Jun. _Fuck what am I doing! Finding replacements for Noble team?_ "Fine, impress me at Chora's Den and you're in."

"Well Fist's likely gonna have some heavy resistance set up at his bar, a bounty hunter named Wrex, a krogan, is after him, last I heard he was at C-Sec being questioned. We could use his help." Emile doubted that very much, but the two Alliance marines behind him had already proved themselves, and he could add two potentially good soldiers to his growing freak show of a team.

"Alright, Vakarian, you and me let's go get him. Williams, Alenko, head up to the embassy, I'll be by in a bit." Garrus and Emile made their way to C-Sec HQ where they found Wrex in an argument with a C-Sec officer about the very man they were preparing to kill. After having his fill of the argument, Wrex shouldered his way past the officer and marched up to Emile and Garrus.

"Hmm, I know you human." Emile was startled, the only people who knew him were people he had met, "You do?"

"Not your name, but every krogan has heard the tale of a human with a skull for a face who killed three thresher maws on foot! And one from the inside no less! The only alien to achieve the feet of actually killing a thresher maw on foot."

"Well good to know I've got a fan base, now my turian friend tells me you got it in for Fist. Thought you might like to join the freak show in taking him down." Wrex appeared to go into a thoughtful state for a moment, _NO damn it, stop comparing everyone you meet to Noble team!_, and responded, "Your friend is wise, for a turian. Let's go kill something." _Ok so he doesn't fit Jorge that well._

When the three approached Chora's Den they noticed the entire place seemed to be on lockdown. "Wrex, suppressive fire as soon as that door opens, Garrus, I'm reading a target on my motion tracker on a level above us. He's probably sitting on the strippers platform, take him down." With nods from the two aliens, Emile hit the switch on the door, Wrex opened up with an Avenger assault rifle causing three thugs behind the bar to duck, giving Garrus the opportunity to line up his sniper shot.

BANG! "Scratch one!" _Keeping score huh? Time to blow 'em away._ Vaulting over the right barricade just past the door, Emile used his left hand to back hand an unfortunate human thug, snapping his neck, while his right hand aimed and fired his shotgun blowing through two unlucky salarians. Then he saw a body encased in blue smack into the wall in front of him. Emile looked over to see Wrex using his biotics to throw those unfortunate enough to be in his path up into the air, while Garrus quickly sniped anyone peeking out of cover. _Okay, impressive, can they keep it up?_ Emile turned his attention back to directly in front of him, blasting away a foolish turian.

Suddenly, a blue blast symbolic of biotics, slammed into his chest. While enough to send any normal sized enemy flying and probably push a krogan on its back, it just knocked the wind out of Emile, and made the krogan bouncer responsible the target of his rage.

"BIG MISTAKE!" Emile roared as his kukri found its way into his left hand in a reverse grip. Spartan and krogan charged each other with Emile bringing his right hand smashing into the krogan's left eye, completely destroying the eye and sending the krogan falling to Emile's left side. Grabbing the krogan's left arm with his right hand, Emile spun the stunned krogan around and brought his kukri to the right and stabbed back with the twelve inch knife, going in-between the head plate and skull, gouging the brain and ripping the head plate right off the krogan's head.

Emile turned to see an awestruck Wrex, "I've never seen anyone, not even another _krogan_ do that to one of my kind."

Garrus noted the skull seemed to smirk at them from behind the covering of blood, "Well get used to it, 'cause I love killing tough things." That alone made Emile pause, even if it was in a back handed sense, he had just complimented an_ alien. Well shit's officially weird._ "Uhm by the way, nice job back there you two," _Good God what's happening to me!_

"So, we officially invited to team Freak Show?" Garrus joked as the made their way towards Fist. "Sure, why the fuck not, can't get anymore fucked can it?" Emile mumbled the last bit under his breath as he opened the door to the back.

"Uh, STOP!" _Warehouse workers? Really at the bottom of the barrel on this one._ "Get the hell outta here!" Emile said as he just walked passed them. The door to Fist's office was locked, so Emile… improvised.

CRASH! "Come out and play Fist!" he shouted as he walked through the door, seeing the two turrets pop up he shouted for Garrus to overload the right one, he took care of the one on the left. Emile threw the desk aside to find a very frightened Fist.

"WHERE'S THE QUARIAN?"

"F-fuck y-y-you!" SHRIKT! "Oh God not the knife please! I set her up, she's in an alleyway just outside; if you hurry you should be able to stop her death!"

"Very good now I won't kill you… Wrex will." BANG! "Let's go get the quarian."

"Hah! This is the most fun I've had in a while human; I think I'll enjoy being your krant!" _Seriously! With the words that don't mean anything to me!_

"Uh, thanks, I guess." Still unsure about the aliens complimenting him. They quickly made work of the back up wave of mercs Saren sent in and made there way to the alley. They saw four krogan's surrounding the unlucky quarian as she realized it must have been a trap. She threw an odd looking grenade at the ground and when it exploded the krogan's shields dropped. Emile took this opportunity to leap down the stairs as Garrus put a bullet through the eye of the krogan on the far side of the alley. Emile landed on the back of the krogan closest and shoved his kukri straight through its eye. He looked up ready to take down more only to watch the quarian dispatch them with well place blasts from her shotgun. _Aw God damn it how many aliens am I gonna be impressed with today?!_

"Fist set me up! I can't believe I trusted… him, keelah," _seriously, more alien words?_ While Emile was frustrated with the not understood references, he did find the way the quarian's eyes widened when she saw him comical. "You okay? What's your name?" _Big man must be laughin' his head off wherever he is._

"Oh keelah," _there it is again_ "I'm sorry, it's just your face, I, oh I'm being rude. Um, I'm fine, my name is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," _uh oh_, "or just Tali." _Phew._ "Well, Tali, you don't have to worry 'bout Fist no more, he came down with a case of 'too much lead in my face,' you got the data on Saren?"

Her eyes seemed to brighten up at that, "Yes I do! Now I can repay you for your kindness, and my rudeness." Emile smirked behind the helmet, "Don't worry, that's how most people act when they see me, let's head up to the embassy."

One elevator ride, and an awkward conversation between Garrus and Tali about quarians and their suits, which Tali put to an end with her shotgun, the team of "freaks" arrived to the human embassy. "What the hell is wrong with you, Commander? You can't bother to show up here first, then you go around shooting up the wards… and what is with the freak show?" Udina remarked concerning the group of aliens.

"Well the quarian, Miss Tali, has all the evidence needed to convict Saren, the others are none of your business, poli!" Emile shot back, everyone on the hodge podge team he had assembled snickered at Emile's brazen tone with the representative of his race. "Tali, I would be most appreciative if you'd show your evidence now, so I can wash my hands of political bullshit."

Tali quickly played a recording she had managed to salvage from a geth trooper, which clearly played out Saren's voice talking about the attack on Eden Prime, then another woman's voice came over and delivered the kicker. "Reapers? What are they?" Udina questioned.

"Didn't the beacon on Eden Prime burn something into your head about Reapers, Emile?" As Anderson questioned him about the beacon, Emile played the entire message over again in his mind, "Yeah, somehow tied in with the destruction of the uh, whaddya call 'em, Protheans."

"That's exactly what the geth database says about them too, a race of sentient machines that wiped out the Protheans 50,000 years ago!" Udina was quick to shoot it down and for once, Emile agreed, "Yeah it's probably just a story used to put the geth under control, we should probably head to the Council with the evidence though."

Unfortunately, Saren wasn't present at the hearing, apparently he had received word from some contacts that his mercenaries had failed to snuff the story. Not much later, it was decided that Emile would become a spectre, and his first mission would be to hunt down Saren.

"Emile, you have been chosen to become the next spectre…" the asari started off, then the other two launched into a group of flowery speeches about the spectre's "duty" and how their chosen not trained. Eventually they stopped prattling and Emile finally started paying attention to what was said to him again.

"Good works getting into the specters Commander. Now you'll need a ship, a crew, Anderson! Come with me and we'll set this up, meet us at the Normandy when we call you Commander." _What an ass_, thought Emile as he watched Udina walk away.

**If you're wondering why there isn't more dialogue and something's just seem to happen too fast, it's probably because those scenes are basically exactly what happened in the game and not exactly the appropriate place put Emile's inner thoughts. Besides ignoring the Council while they made their grand ceremony about specters seems pretty Emile. Though I do think I rushed the ending, its 1 am though and I'm pretty tired, if you complain enough I'm sure I'll fix it.**

**Review please; don't want to write what you don't want to read.**


	6. The Freak Show

**Okay this is pretty much just a little filler chapter, Emile gets the Normandy, and he heads to Arcturus Station to get some goodies from Dot, the nature of said goodies will change how some characters will act on the battlefield, just letting you know now. **

**On a side note, Tali is in the lead for a romance option, if I do end up going with her, which seems likely, it won't be during the ME1 timeline, but don't worry they will have a pretty good friendship during ME1 and this story will *fingers crossed* span all three Mass Effect games. So any relationships with aliens will most likely have to wait until the interim chapters between ME1 and 2 or until ME2 gets underway.**

As Emile made his way with his team to the elevator, Tali stopped him, "Commander, I know you already have a good team but…" Emile could guess where this was headed, "You want on the team?"

He could practically _hear_ the smile coming from Tali, "Yes please, you saw what I did to those krogan in the alleyway, and I could probably get any ship you take running twice as good as it is now." _Doubt she'd be able to do much more to the Normandy, but she could be a good field mechanic._

"Tell you what Tali, if you can take my shotgun apart and put it back together in under… two minutes, you're in." with that Emile led her over to a bench and handed her his shotgun. Emile started the counter in his head as soon as she started, and the quarian certainly wasted no time. Her fingers practically blurred over the unfamiliar weapon, the reason Emile wanted her to use his shotgun was because there was no weapon like it in this universe. Even with the differences of the gun, Tali had it completely stripped in just 45 seconds and was putting it back together at an even faster pace. When she was done she handed it back with 1:20 on the clock, her eyes seeming to smirk at Emile. _Even faster than my time, damn!_

"Alright, you're in, welcome to the Freak Show"

"Keelah! The what?!" Tali exclaimed, apparently not understanding the joke. "Nevermind, welcome aboard, you do just realized you joined a team to fight a rogue spectre and his army of killer robots right?"

Tali's eyes, apparently capable of expressing almost any motion, burned with anger, "I signed up to kill geth." A smirk twisted its way onto Emile's lips, grunting a short laugh at her answer he motioned for her to follow him. Turning to the rest of his team Emile proclaimed to the rest of the team, "Say hello to the newest member of our little team."

Kaidan snorted a laugh, "Not so little anymore, Commander." Williams, Emile noticed, looked a little miffed at the newest member of the team. He made a mental note to talk to her later about this, Emile wasn't crazy about the aliens either but it wouldn't do for Williams to be second guessing him.

As they mad there way through the shops in the wards trying to find some better equipment befitting Emile's new government status, an idea formed in his mind. "Guys come here, look none of us have the cash to buy anything here worth a crap, but I know someone who might be able to set us up."

"Who?"

"Well, we'll have to wait till we get our ship but we'll be heading straight to Arcturus Station, we'll be able to get some of the latest stuff for free." Emile responded to Kaidan's question. "Um, no offense Emile, but I'm probably your only friend, and you've never shown any sign of 'knowing people' or even being able to hold an extended conversation with anyone."

"Trust me." Ashley then said what almost everyone was thinking in the group, "Trust the guy with a skull carved on his helmet? Well it's not like we have a choice." With barely any actual trust and mostly just lack of options, the team conceded. Emile got a message to his omnitool, it was from Udina, telling him to get up to the Normandy.

After uncomfortably squeezing their way into the elevator, the six man/woman/alien team finally arrived to the Normandy. Emile told his team to head inside while he saw what Udina and Anderson wanted. "Good news, commander, Captain Anderson is stepping down, the ship is now yours." _What! A team commander is one thing, a ship captain something else._ When Emile voiced his concerns, Captain Anderson quickly calmed him down.

"Listen Emile, you thought you'd be a terrible team leader too, but I think the group walking into the Normandy right now would care to disagree. You can do this son, the crew likes you, and as long as you make sure people do their jobs, all you have to do is choose where to go." Emile thought this over for a second and finally asking the question on his mind, "Alright, but why am I taking _your_ ship?"

"Emile, I'm too close to this issue, if I had my own ship I'd probably go chasing Saren down too, only Saren's already inside my head. Besides, the Normandy's perfect! She's fast, stealthy, and powerful. You'll be going into some hot sectors of space, the Normandy will pull through.

"If you two are done small talking, Emile should get going! The files have been uploaded to the Captain's quarters, and don't screw up, because if you do, I have to clean it up!" Udina was practically begging for Emile to throw him off the docking platform, _sonnava bitch,_ "I promise ambassador…"

"Good now why don…" Emile interrupted Udina, "…that if I ever have some dirt on you, even a little, I'll enjoy making you _**scream.**_" Emile then marched into the ship, barking at Joker to take off and make a slip space jump straight to Arcturus Station, leaving a suddenly, frighteningly, pale Donnel Udina standing on the docking platform.

On the ship Emile went to find the various teammates he's acquired. He found the three aliens standing at the edge of the CIC, apparently they were waiting for him assign them a station. Garrus was the first one to pitch in his idea, "Commander with your permission I'd like to set up in the forward battery station, I read a great deal about the weapons they put on this baby, I'd like the chance to learn everything I can."

"Alright, but if you fuck 'em up, I'll fuck you up. Clear?" Garrus gulped, and quickly nodded his head, "Alright cheer up, I'm sure you'll do fine on the guns." Tali quickly stepped up, "I'm going to go to work on the engines, I guarantee I won't ruin them, in fact I am willing to bet all my credits I can get them better than when they were new."

"… Okay." The quarians eyes widened, "I expected more of a fight, I mean I'm a quarian. You aren't worried that I'm just going to steal all of the ship's secrets and run off?"

"If you do, I'll gut you before you make it out the airlock, besides you're a good engineer and good engineers make the ship go. Don't get too attached though, after we get some of the gear from Arcturus, I'm gonna need your help on some projects."

Finally turning to Wrex, "And what am I supposed to do with you?" Wrex just shrugged, "All I'm good at is fighting; it's why I'm a mercenary. I have plenty of stories I could share." Emile snorted at Wrex's little joke, but an idea was sparked by his earlier statement.

"You wanna fight?" Wrex blinked, "Excuse me?"

"I meant spar. Every morning I spar with the marines onboard, keep myself sharp and give me something to do. Unfortunately, I have to pull my blows so I don't have Doctor Chakwas stringing me up. But you, I imagine, won't mind fighting full speed."

Wrex's mouth twisted into a hideous smirk, "Of course not, and I could use a worthy opponent." Emile reached up and undid the seals on his helmet, pulling it off to reveal his dark skin and jagged scars around his mouth, "Perfect."

While Wrex went down to the cargo hold to find a nice cozy spot of hard deck plating to sleep on, Emile went into the armory to find Ashley Williams fiddling with some of the guns the team had brought in with them, "Hope you're not sabotaging any of our new crew's weapons, Williams."

Ashley replied without looking, "Of course not sir, just cleaning and calibrating. But if you don't mind me asking sir, you don't seem anymore comfortable with the aliens onboard than I do, so why are you letting them poke around in the systems?"

Emile stepped up to a circle like machine with arms extending into the circle, "Well Williams, it's mostly due to the fact that I'm the commanding officer, and you're going to deal with it. On a more personal level though, it's because I don't see the malice." The machine started to life, taking off and storing the metal plates from his armor. Ashley turned around at the noise, and to respond but was quieted when she found she was looking at her superior officer wearing nothing but a skin tight bodysuit.

Ashley was only rendered speechless for a second, though her blush remained, "Malice, sir?" Emile's response hit her hard, "Williams, I've fought aliens you've never heard of, aliens that make Wrex look like a harmless puppy, not to mention all sorts of baddies you can find in the Verge. By now you know that I like to get close to my enemies, look into there eyes as I kill 'em, every time I do so, I see it. The malice in their eyes, it don't matter what kind of alien, what kind of eyes, or if they even really have eyes, it looks the same. When I look into the eyes of the three we brought onboard, I don't see it. It's not there, I can see Tali's curiosity, Garrus' burning desire, and Wrex's lust for killing, but the malice that I've seen in the enemies eyes, is missing. So I'm willing to give 'em a chance, I'll keep 'em under close observation so don't worry 'bout sabotage or nothing. And if they do, then trust me, paybacks a bitch."

Emile left Ashley in a daze as he left the armory in his under armor, kukri sheathed on the belt of course. His thoughts ran along the course of guilt, not that he had been too hard on Ashley, but for mentioning his experiences with elites and brutes. _Might as well make a ship wide announcement about how I come from a different universe full of ten foot monkeys and split lipped snakes._ He made his way down to the third level, crew deck. As the two ranking marines on board, Kaidan and Ashleys quarter's were located on either observation deck, but Emile knew he'd find Kaidan tinkering with the life support systems.

"I knew it poisoning the air supply! Why I outta carve a skull on _your_ face!"

"Ahhh! Jesus Emile! Don't sneak up on me like that! I have power tools in my hands; I coulda burned your face off!" Emile just started laughing like crazy backed up against the wall, "Cheer up Elvis, I would have stopped you in time."

"Well I could have burned my face off. I was just reheating the plasma coils keeping everyone in the ship from freezing."

"Why were they off?" Kaidan started explaining a series of technical procedures that Emile only half listened too. Very early on Emile discovered that Kaidan would shut himself away from everyone else, yet desperately needed someone to talk to. So every now and then Emile would pop by, ask a question and let Kaidan talk to him for several minutes before he decided to get back to work.

Sure enough, five minutes later, "Well Commander, I better get back to work." Walking out of life support, Emile started for the main gun battery, guessing that Garrus was in there. Walking in he was immediately stopped by Garrus holding up a finger telling him to wait a second. Emile could hear him muttering under his breath, "Almost got it… there!" Garrus spun around, "Commander what can I do for you?"

"Well actually I came to see if you remembered me." Emile explained as the door shut behind him. Garrus raised a brow plate, "I'm surprised you remember me, you passed out almost as soon as we met." Emile huffed a bit at the memory, "Well I came down here to ask you to keep it on the down low as to what happened. It's classified for a reason."

"Absolutely, I was entrusted to keep this information safe and I can hardly do that by spouting it off to every stranger." Emile nodded, "Good, Harkin nearly spilled the beans to my marines, and earlier I let a little slip to Williams, so it'd be best if I can keep you from repeating my mistakes. They're already curious enough. We should almost be at the station by now, when I've picked up our new weapons and armor schematics, I'll call for ya."

"Of course, Commander." Emile left the main battery room secretly breathing a sigh of relief. He wouldn't have to worry about Garrus talking. While Emile didn't really care if anyone knew, he had his orders. _Even if I am a spectre._ He quickly made his way up to the bridge figuring they had to be closing in on their destination. Emile arrived just as Joker was about to call for him, "Oh, Commander, you're here. We've arrived, need me to pull us into dock?"

"Yeah, go ahead," Emile headed for the airlock, but before he stepped outside, "but keep the engines hot, I'll be back in ten, twenty minutes." Emile knew right where to go for the goodies.

"You are not authorized for access, Noble Four."

"Damn it Dot, I'm a spectre now, there's no such thing as classified for me anymore, now let me in!" Emile yelled at the terminal just outside the in-development weapons cache, drawing many odd stares from passer-by's. "My apologies Noble Four, but you merely needed to mention your spectre status to gain entry, your Alliance ID does not yet have the changes applied."

_Finally,_ Emile thought as the doors slid open. He quickly opened an empty trunk he had brought with him, _Alright let's see, Garrus likes snipers, Tali is a feisty girl with her shotgun, Cheeks would appreciate a new assault rifle, and Wrex might like our new big gun._ First order of business was selecting the best weapons for his teammates. He moved over to the experimental line of sniper rifles.

He noted they looked a lot like the sniper from his home, main difference being that it did fold up. Emile never liked that feature about this place's guns, what if it folded up while he was shooting it? Moving past that difference, the real change was in what it shot. The weapon automatically cycled thermal clips after every shot, making them look like shell casing flying out of a breach. You could load your thermal clips into a magazine that was slotted in the bottom. Unlike Emile's shotgun, this gun was safe for use by normal humans, thanks mostly to a revolutionary stock on the gun. It still wasn't as powerful as Emile's shotgun, and the person wielding the gun should wear protective armor to avoid tissue damage, but it was capable of shredding through any personal kinetic barriers made anywhere in Citadel space, and most vehicles too. In short, in the hands of a master, this is the Finger of God. Emile remembered reading that turian anatomy was tougher than most humans, so the weapon was safe for Garrus.

Setting the rifle aside, Emile picked up a shotgun sitting against the wall. An Eviscerator, safe for anyone to handle, but still a very dangerous gun. Using an incredibly advanced VI, designed by Dot itself, it uses aerodynamic shard's of tungsten to pierce armor, and each pellet was electrically charged to create a small electromagnetic field to disable the target's shields a few nano-seconds before they hit their target, rendering all but the toughest kinetic barriers useless. _Tali better say thank you._

Next gun in line was a new line of rifles poised to become the new standard issue assault rifle for Alliance marines, though it would still be a few years. Based on the design of the MA5B assault rifle from Emile's universe, the rifle sported a system of three thermal clips that could only be removed by field stripping the weapon. The reason for this was a new design that would use the hot thermal clips to generate electricity for some of the extra features on the weapon, like the stun gun, an arc of electricity to subdue hostiles at a range of up to fifteen feet. While yet to receive a name, Emile always personally called it the Avenger mk. Reach, or Reach for short. Williams would put this to good use.

Up next was Wrex's gun. Being a krogan, Emile knew that it was likely the enemy would want to focus on him. To help with that, Emile picked up a brand new gun made by the Alliance that was supposed to be carried by a two man crew. It was based of the heavy machine gun Jorge always carried around. Sporting a similar system to the Reach assault rifle, there were three internal oversized thermal clips, but unlike the Reach, this gun would automatically cycle them, not even offering a break in the firing. Designed to be used in the future in tandem with a new exoskeleton still in design, this gun had no stock, it just had a handle on the end, and a handle halfway along the barrel. Emile had already had Dot download the designs for the exoskeleton to the Normandy's computer, he'd have Tali help him create and fit one specifically for Wrex. Emile noticed a little engraving on the side of the gun, Dragon's Breath. _Hmph, fitting_, it was true, the gun could put out a massive amount of firepower for virtually forever, held back only by the number of enemies needed to kill.

Finally, he placed the weapons in the trunk, and filled another, slightly smaller, trunk to the brim with premium thermal clips. Grabbing the five hundred pounds of arms and ammo with his hands on either side of the four foot wide trunk, he made his way back to the Normandy, drawing twice as many stares as he did on his way in. Finally walking into the Normandy he told Joker to set course for the Artemis Tau cluster. They had a brat to interrogate.

**Okay, sorry this took so long compared to my previous updates, at first I was short on inspiration, then I was busy with moving back home for the holidays. Please keep giving me your ideas on a pairing, and give me some feedback on the weapons. Do you think it'll be cool to see Wrex in a motorized exoskeleton wielding a massive machine gun? Or how about Garrus picking off targets a mile away with his new Finger of God?**


	7. Hoggin' All the Kills

**Hey another update! It would appear that I've slowed down a bit lately, oh well. Looks like the romance debate is heating up, Ashley or Kasumi eh? I can see how with either one, the only problem is that I kinda had a direction I wanted to go with Ashley, not involving Emile really. But Kasumi would be kind of cool, there wouldn't be much of an age difference really, maybe five years at the most, that made a Shepard Kasumi romance impossible. Keep giving me suggestions, but according to the reviews, those are the two options at the moment.**

**In this chapter, the gang gets their brand new kick-ass guns, and Emile showcases his impressive driving ability by ramming armatures into lakes of lava, off cliff faces, or just uses them as a fancy hood ornament.**

The team gathered in the armory to receive their new weaponry. "Merry fucking Christmas everybody, I got you all new guns, first up Garrus," handing Garrus the Finger of God, "this rifle is NOT to be fired without your armor on, or it will permanently destroy your shoulder, this gun can take the driver out of heavily armored vehicle at 2000 yards." Garrus smiled as he unfolded the beautiful rifle and brought it up to his shoulder. The scope was still new and absolutely pristine, but that didn't stop Garrus from calibrating it anyway.

"Okay Tali, your gun was actually going to be taken out of production. Considered so dangerous and lethal, it was deemed to unsafe to go into mass production. The Eviscerator will bypass shields, rip through armor, and shred any and all targets it is fired upon. Be careful with it." Tali's eyes widened in surprise as she received the incredibly deadly shotgun, first this human let her work on the most advanced drive core she'd ever seen, then allowed to tinker and learn about an entirely different mode of FTL, and now she was given a shotgun that probably cost more than an most quarians will make in their entire lives. What did she do to deserve this?

"Williams, I got you a new rifle. You won't need to replace thermal clips in this thing while on a mission, though you should swap them after every mission. You will have to cycle the internal clips after every forty shots, just pull the breach back, after you've spent one clip on the battlefield, you'll have access to the extra feature. Using the extra heat from the hot clip as electricity, the attachment currently on the gun will shoot an arc of electricity at a range of up to fifteen feet. It won't go into production for another year or two, so make good use of it." Murmuring her thanks, Ashley took what was undoubtedly the deadliest weapon she had ever held. Even so, she was still planning on getting some customizations for this weapon.

At this point Wrex was shaking with excitement. He was wondering what kind of awesome, super secret, super illegal gun he was going to get his hands on. Nothing could have prepared him for the monstrosity that was set down in front of him. "Alright Wrex, here's a big gun for a big… krogan, I guess. Anyway, this gun weighs in at a whopping 300 pounds, probably to heavy for you to keep up with us for long without a little assistance. I brought schematics for an exoskeleton that runs over your arms and legs which will help you carry and run with this gun. Tali's gonna have to help build it and fit it for ya, provided Tali is willing." Receiving a nod from Tali, Emile continued to break it down, "Now this gun automatically cycles the internal thermal clips, unlike the Reach assault rifle Ashley has, making Dragon's Breath a non-stop killing machine." Wrex was practically jumping up and down until he realized what Emile had said.

"Wait, you mean I'm gonna have to wait on the quarian before I can take this thing out for a spin?!" Emile chuckled and responded, "Relax Wrex, the first mission probably ain't gonna be more than quick snatch 'n grab. We're just gonna grab the brat, and interrogate her, it'll be boring."

"Scaring and intimidating asari is never boring!" Wrex exclaimed. "Well too bad Wrex, Ashley, Kaidon, and Garrus are coming, not you, so sit down, let Tali get to work, and if you're real nice to her, maybe I'll let you come on the next mission." Turning to Tali he added, "Tell me if he gets out of control, and I'll rough him up a bit." Tali's eyes seemed to smirk at Wrex as she nodded.

Grabbing his three teammates that he was going to take with him, he headed down to the brand new, Alliance Ground Assault vehicle, or Warthog to the marines. Sharing a strikingly similar profile to the vehicle Emile was familiar with, it was about three quarters the size of the previously used Mako tank, making it much larger than the warthogs from Reach. Their was improved room on the interior, with the driver's seat sitting slightly forward and in the middle between two passenger seats on either side of the hog. The windows rolled down so the passengers could help defend the vehicle. Finally, in the back there was a rather large, eezo free, gauss turret. This gun used magnetic rails to launch half pound projectiles at ridiculous speeds, making it the premier anti-armor gun in the Alliance.

Using a titanium-vanadium alloy, the roll cage surrounding the vehicle ensures no one could get seriously hurt in a crash, regardless of how fast the hog was going. Not to mention the two fierce looking spikes extending from the front. These are the very reason they received the name warthog. Williams didn't think along the same lines, "Why do they call it a warthog? It looks more like a puma."

"What? Williams look at those tusks, there's just no way it could pass as a puma, besides what other animal has tusks?" Ashley pondered for a second, "a walrus?"

Emile stared at her for a second, "Kaidon, poison Cheeks next meal." Kaidon laughed, "Yes sir!" Garrus just stared at the weird humans before him and shook his head, _I'll never understand humans_. They quickly piled in the hog, Emile at the driver's seat, Ashley took right, Garrus took left with his sniper, and Kaidon climbed up to the rear gun. Joker soon announced they were over the drop zone and opened the hangar bay. Due to the more open cab of the warthog, they couldn't drop from an altitude more than a hundred meters. Thankfully this new vehicle still had the vertical thruster gamble the Mako had, plus a pair of afterburner's Emile had requested himself to go along with the big spikes upfront.

They hit dirt on the first and hopefully only planet on their search for Liara T'soni, Therum. They knew she was in this sector and this was the only planet with prothean ruins she'd likely be poking around in. Emile hit the gas and the much faster than the Mako warthog sped off. The sudden lurch from the speed boost was not lost on the occupants of the vehicle, as Ashley went white, Kaidon only managed to hang on thanks to a safety harness, and Garrus gripped his sniper rifle in fear for his life.

"Uh shouldn't we slow down? So we don't go tipping over into the lava lakes?" Kaidon asked after a particularly hard turn nearly ended up in them rolling end over end. "Aw, what's the matter Elvis? Scared of a little speed?" Emile yelled back from his position at the front, "Joker just radioed in anyway, said the scanners picked up some major prothean ruins on the sensors, we just have to keep following the ridiculously convenient road that leads right-"

Emile was cut off as a geth frigate roared overhead and dropped off three armatures and a colossus directly in front of them. Instead of slowing down Emile just hit the after burners and slammed into the first armature, the spikes piercing and disabling the thing, while Kaidon immediately fired the gauss cannon at the colossus. The half pound slug slammed straight into the giant machine's shields, causing them to flicker and fail giving Garrus a perfect shot with his brand new rifle… CRACK! The geth's flashlight face shattered and the back of its head spewed forth machinery and white hydraulic fluid. "Whoa! This bad girl sure has a kick! But man oh man; did you see what she did to that colossus?"

"Yes Garrus it was awesome now how 'bout you shut it while I concentrate on driving!" Emile shouted to his left as he smashed into another armature. Kaidon took aim at the last unit and make quick work of it with the gauss. Emile then turned his attention to the geth frigate that was making its way around for another pass. Suddenly there was a massive boom as a white thunderbolt split the geth frigate into a thousand little pieces. "Sorry Commander, frigate must have sneaked past me while I was making cosmic dust out of the three cruisers up in orbit. You should no a couple of other frigates have made passes over the prothean ruins I detected, resistance ought to be pretty thick when you get closer."

"Aight, thanks Joker. Hey, how'd the Normandy handle her first battle run?" Emile was curious, that ship would have been a power house against a cluster of Covenant corvettes on paper, but he was curious as to how it handled in real life. "HAHAHAHAHA! It was like playing video games Commander. Those fucking idiots had no clue what was going on! The mass driver plowed straight through the kinetic barriers of even the cruisers, and the plasma cannons ripped through their armor like paper. Oh man, Commander, can we go take back Rannoch? We could do it with just two more of these things! I'm sure of it."

"NO! But I promise if we come across a geth fleet, you can wipe 'em out. Now get back to watching our backs." Emile was smiling behind his skulled helmet, he couldn't ask for a better review on his brand new ship. That right there made him pause. Since when had he started to think of it as _his_ ship? That wasn't right, Emile was a soldier, a follow orders kill bad guys, kind of man, not give orders. Then Emile thought about his current situation, and the team he had assembled, Emile had changed. "BOOM! Take that sucka!" _Well not that much,_ he realized as he floored a couple of geth troopers. They soon arrived to a pass too narrow to cross.

Getting out of the vehicle, Emile called for a pick up for the hog and told Kaidon to wait for the Normandy. He and the others could take care of the rest, or so he thought. As they moved through a small canyon, they were immediately ambushed. Two dozen geth troopers supplemented by a sniper up at the narrow pass at the end and four geth juggernauts, _Fuck me! Shoulda told Kaidon to wait. _"Garrus! Sniper at the top, take him out and then focus on the flankers, Williams, take on the troopers, suppressive fire till I can take out those juggernauts!"

Emile leapt from cover just in time to hear the crack of a sniper rifle, and to see the geth sniper topple over missing its head. As he reached his first juggernaut, Emile heard the guttural roaring of Ashley's Reach assault rifle as it took the arm of one geth and punched several nasty holes in the chest cavity of another. Bringing his uber-shotgun to bear on the giant red machine, he let loose a blast of irradiated tungsten pellets, blasting away the kinetic barriers and turning the upper chest and head into twisted scrap metal. Whirling around on another juggernaut, he took a step on a chest high rock, leaping into the air to pass over the geth as he let another blast of his shotgun turn it into a mess of wiring and hydraulic fluids. He landed on another unfortunate geth trooper, crushing it underneath his massive bulk.

Emile noticed for red dots moving in on his right thanks to his motion trac He landed on another unfortunate geth trooper, crushing it underneath his massive bulk.

Emile noticed for red dots moving in on his right thanks to his motion tracker. As he turned to face the three shock troopers backed by a juggernaut, four loud cracks sounded through the canyon, and the four flashlight heads looking at Emile were no more. "Ha! You owe me a turian whiskey!" Garrus' voice crackled over the comm. "Ya I coulda taken em anyway Claws!"

"Claws?" Garrus confused voice sounded over the radio as Ashley cackled, "Ha! Claws! That's way worse than my nickname!" Emile laughed alongside Ashley as he dusted the last juggernaut with a quick removal of its head via buckshot, "I give all my teammates nicknames Claws. Get used to it." Not many geth remained in the canyon, Ashley's assault rifle had dusted eleven of the original twenty four, Garrus' beloved sniper rifle having made quick work of eight flashlight heads, and Emile came in with just five kills, _must be losing my touch, or I just had some crazy good shots as back up while I was doing some acrobatics._

They moved up to the exit where Emile's kinetic barriers immediately dropped and his plasma shields flared into existence as a sniper round hit him square in the chest, "Claws! Cheeks! Same plan as last time." Emile quickly thundered down the hill, ramming the butt of his shotgun straight through the head of a shock trooper. Ashley quickly took cover and began hammering the geth moving there way down into the valley the team found themselves in. Garrus in the meantime was getting headshot after headshot as groups of snipers and rocket troopers moved into the deathtrap that was the snipers nest resting at the crest of the next hill. The team quickly got rid of the, by comparison, small group of geth and made their way to the access mine to the prothean ruins.

"Hold up" Emile ordered, "I don't like the looks of this, see that structure to the right of the mines? Perfect place to hide a couple of armatures, not to mention the geth will most likely be bringing in more troops by gunship to enter the mine." Emile ordered Garrus to stay back and give them sniper support while Ashley was to move around the left side and take cover behind the protruding mineshaft so she could assist Emile as he sprung the trap. Moving up after checking to see Ashley was where she was supposed to be, Emile suddenly saw a geth like unit spring down on top of a crate and, too fast for an unaugmented eye to follow, spring up to underneath the walkway above him. Emile noticed a small barrel protruding from below its "eye". _What the fuck are you?_

As it leaped away, Emile noticed a couple of geth dropships moving into position over him as they deposited thirty shock troopers, five destroyers, and one prime each. _72 geth? I'm insulted,_ then Emile noticed three armatures and a colossus moving out from behind the shed like building to his right, _ok, now I'm flattered_. Calling over his comm. Emile yelled for Garrus to take out the destroyers and for Ashley to start ripping into the shock troopers. The hopper from before landed in front of Emile who, faster than the geth could process, stomped on its head, _you no longer interest me bug._

Garrus was acquiring a sore shoulder as he took yet another flashlight head. _Should talk to that quarian girl on board about getting a gel layer installed on my armor._ CRACK! Another head, Garrus was counting fifteen heads so far and, besides the discomfort in his shoulder, had fallen hard for his brand new sniper rifle. It truly lived up to the name Finger of God. In his hands, anyone anywhere on the battlefield was at his mercy. CRACK! _Sixteen._

Ashley pulled the bolt back on her Reach assault rifle, cycling thermal clips, and continued to make scrap metal out of the swaths of white geth in front of her. The gun was more accurate, and more powerful than the Avenger she used to carry, but still fired just as fast. Noticing a shock trooper move a little closer to her on her left flank, she activated the special firing mode and watched as an ark of electricity scrambled the electronics and fried the AI's inside. Oh yeah, this was the gun for her.

While his two squad mates were whispering sweet nothings to their new guns, Emile was a whirlwind of action as his shotgun and kukri mangled any geth within thirty feet. Eventually a prime made its way over to him, and absorbed a shot from Emile's weapon with its kinetic barriers. Made to be an absolutely conquering unit on the battlefield, a geth prime's shields are capable of handling artillery strikes, so even a shotgun as powerful as Emile's only gave its shields a small dent. Realizing he'd have to get creative, Emile dashed forward, dodging the swipe of the prime's fist, and climbed up the twenty foot tall machine's back and stuck his kukri through the top of its head, driving the point straight through the main data cable that served as a brainstem to the massive geth, killing it.

When it dropped to the ground, Emile noticed the rocket launcher attachment the monstrosity had equipped to its massive rifle. He quickly ripped it off the gun and turned its rockets upon the other prime, quickly scrapping it. Throwing the empty rocket launcher to the ground, Emile quickly whipped out his grenade launcher and turned to the, until now, ignored armatures and colossus. Three EMP's later and all that stood on the battlefield other than Emile was the colossus. But no EMP was going to get to that monster. Emile dove behind cover as the colossus fired a particularly strong pulse mortar. _Fuck, that thing ain't going down! Its freekin' shields keep recharging too quickly._ Then a particularly devious thought came to Emile's mind, _but they ain't keeping me out._

"Cheeks, Claws! Get that thing's attention, Imma go around." Emile dashed around the shed while the colossus focused its attention on the suddenly aggressive organics in front of it. Soon Emile was right below the monstrosity, knifing his way into its chasse. Pulling back the armor plates on its belly, Emile put the business end of his shotgun against some very important looking machinery and fired, shredding the most important components inside the massive geth, killing it. Emile dashed out from under the monstrosity to find some cover as the colossus self destructed.

When the smoke cleared Emile called his team up to the mine entrance, "Okay, we're going in. That whole mess right out here was their main force, there's likely just a scout team inside, but even so, keeps on your toes." Garrus' brow plates shot up, "Toes? What do my toes have to do with anything?" Ashley rolled her eyes, "It means stay on your feet turian. Don't you people have some similar saying?"

"Alright cut the chatter people, stay tight, I'll take point, Williams stay close,  
Garrus hang back and keep over watch." Receiving nods confirming their orders, Emile made his way into the mine. As he reached the bottom of a long incline, he immediately heard the familiar mechanical stuttering signifying a geth presence. He saw one shock trooper on a walk way just below him, so he vaulted over the hand rail and crashed down on the geth… and through the walkway sending him tumbling into the black reaches of the mine.

**AAAAAHH! The dreaded cliffhanger! Mwahahahaha! Man now I understand why writers take so much pleasure in cliffhangers. It really gives one a sense of power. You are under my control! Your enjoyment hangs on the edge of a knife and I am the wielder of said knife! Man I'm a sociopath.**

**Cliffhanger aside, tell me what you think of my first mission chapter, and the warthog. Did I go too far in the blending of the tech? Did I lean too far towards Halo? ME? What about the nicknames? Should I knock it off and edit the previous chapters to get rid of them?**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	8. It's Not That Scary, Is It?

**Hey everybody! Couldn't really leave you with that cliffhanger for to long, kind of felt like a jerk, plus I'm really bored waiting for the Viking's game to start, so I decided I'd start writing a chapter. It looks like I'm going to go with Kasumi, mostly by process of elimination. I don't like a Jack pairing because two abrasive personalities is just going to lead to a clashing of egos. I don't think Miranda would put up with Emile, and trust me they're going to be fighting a lot. I already have a direction I wanted to take with Ashley, and Tali and Liara are both aliens, and as it has been explained to me, Emile would develop friendships with aliens, but would never go too far beyond that.**

**In this chapter, Wrex gets his exoskeleton, and the gang meets T'soni,**

Wrex shifted uncomfortably as the stupid quarian girl was tinkering with the motorized joints on his elbow, "Wrex, keelah can you stop moving? I want to have this done before the commander gets back!"

Tali had been going on like this for the past hour, every time she located a kink in the processors, she'd go and tinker in the servos and gears, only to have Wrex shift and wiggle while she was. "There, now don't move while I bring the system online."

Tali brought the most advanced fission reactor she had ever seen. It looked similar to the back armor on Emile, and powered the exoskeleton and the new plasma shield that would form on Wrex's left forearm. It looked like an old riot shield that Tali had seen on old human movies. "Okay Wrex, stand up."

Wrex stood with a barely audible mechanical whine. _Whoa! _Wrex thought, _that was fast._ He did some mock punches in the air, and could easily feel the power and fluidity as he struck imaginary opponents. Tali then asked him if he could activate the plasma shield on his arm, so he clenched the right lever in his left hand and watched as a bright blue shield flared to life. He swung it around a bit, and jumped back as the bottom edge sliced off the edge of a nearby table.

"Whoa! This thing was worth the wait! Thanks quarian." Tali huffed and muttered under her breath, "My name is Tali!" Wrex continued chuckling as he walked over to his new gun and lifted it with ease. He would easily be able to run ten miles with his new heavily armored exoskeleton, even with a three hundred pound machine gun. _I wonder if it's too late to join them on the surface?_

In the mine shaft Ashley and Garrus' eyes shot wide as they watched Emile tumble into the depths. The last thing they heard from him was a great big, "OOOOOHHHHH SSSHHIIIIIIIIIIITT!" BANG! CLANG! CRASH! "I'm okay!" the two soldiers at the top sighed in relief, "but get your butts down here! I think I found her!" Ashley and Garrus quickly took off over to a nearby elevator and began their descent.

After reassuring his teammates he was alright, Emile had spotted a slumped over figure suspended in a blue force field. He made his way through what must have been the researcher's camp; he was quickly assaulted by seven geth drones. He brought his shotgun to bear and blew two straight out of the sky. The rest of the drones quickly drew back to a safe distance and started bringing down the Spartan's shields. Taking cover behind a prefab shelter, he noticed a slumped over salarian figure and a Mattock rifle in the diminutive alien's hands. Quickly diving across the opening to the corpse, he wrenched the Mattock from the cold fingers and started firing the semi-automatic rifle into the drones. _Like a DMR the commander always used to use_.

After he had dispatched the rest of the drones he made his way over to the asari just as his team came down via elevator. "Commander, are you okay!?" Ashley exclaimed as she jumped down from the damaged walkway.

"I'm fine Cheeks; my left shoulder took the fall." Ashley's eye's widened, "Is it broken? That was nearly a four hundred foot fall!" Emile sighed, he'd forgotten they know almost nothing about him, "No it's fine; I managed to slow my fall." No reason to let them on to anything they don't need to know.

"Well now that that's out of the way, what do we do about her?" Garrus pointed to the asari slumped over in the force field. "She looks like she's unconscious. We're gonna have to figure out our own way past the force field." Emile pointed out. He quickly checked around the force field, and found nothing. Emile expanded the search out to where he had fallen earlier and remembered the drilling laser. Quickly activating his omnitool, Emile began a very frustrating process of figuring out the right sequence to get the drill started, _shoulda brought Tali, that girl probably would have had it already_. Finally the drill started, and Ashley had to leap out of the way as a massive laser burrowed through, just underneath the cell like thing T'soni was in.

The team made their way up via lift to the cell where Liara had been awakened by the noise, "uh hello! Is there anyone there? Oh please don't be geth." _Why wouldn't she want geth? Shouldn't they be on the same side?_

"Calm down, T'soni. We got some questions for you." Emile said as he approached her from behind. "W-what questions? I don't understand!" she started crying, "First the geth show up… GETH! What are they doing beyond the Veil? Then I activated the security field trapping me in here! What do you people want from me?!"

"Garrus, get her out of there, she has nothing to do with Saren."

"Commander, are yo-"

"DO IT CLAWS!" Garrus stuttered for a second before he hit the release control, causing Liara to fall to the ground. Emile went to help her up, "Oh, thank you, so you are not with the ge- AAAAAAHHHHHH!" As soon as Liara saw the skull engraved on Emile's helmet, she fainted into Emile's arms.

"Come on, it can't be that scary! She survives deadly situations, and my skull scares the crap out of her?!" Ashley and Garrus just laughed at the situation, at least until the mountain started shaking. "Ok people the laser must have destabilized the mine, this place is gonna be flooded with lava in ten minutes tops! MOVE IT MOVE IT MOVE IT!" While they piled into the elevator, Emile called Joker in for a pick up.

The lift made it to the top, Emile really hoped there was an exit at the end of this route, but his thoughts were put on hold as he spotted a krogan and several geth make their way to surround the lift. "Surrender! Or do-" whatever the krogan was going to say was cut off as Emile's kukri had flown across the gap, and buried itself deep in the throat of the massive alien, cutting arteries and killing it. The team made short work of the geth troopers surrounding them, and Ashley and Garrus made their way outside.

Emile was slinging the unconscious asari over his shoulders as a boulder fell from the ceiling, sealing him inside the lift room. _Sonnava bitch!_ He unceremoniously dropped Liara on the ground, and began pulling and heaving against the multi-ton rock. He heard a screeching sound and finally a crash as the lift behind him plummeted into the lava below, thankfully he had moved Liara off of it. Finally the boulder started to move as he managed to roll it away with a big grunt. On the other side an astonished Ashley Williams and Garrus Vakarian stood with open mouths.

Not even wasting a word on them, he scooped T'soni off the ground and sprinted past them to see the Kodiak shuttle waiting for them. Another grunt and Emile soared through the air landing feet first in the crew hold of the shuttle. He dumped Liara on the floor and turned to catch the hands of the two teammates he had ran past and pulled them in with him.

"Next time I order you to get to the shuttle, you go! It doesn't matter if I had been held behind, you could have died too!" Emile shouted at the two. "Of course, Commander. It's just, you would have come back for us too." Garrus responded after looking to Ashley for support.

"Your damn right I would have, but the difference is that your lives are MY responsibility. If you lose your own team someday, you'll find out what I mean." Signaling to the pilot to get them out of here, he checked on the asari. Just passed out, maybe a little malnourished and a few bumps and bruises from Emile's not so tender touch.

After dropping Liara off with Chakwas to make sure she recovered, Emile was greeted with a cranky quarian and a smiling krogan. "NEXT TIME YOU CAN DEAL WITH HIM! BECAUSE I'M DONE WITH HIM! THE FIDGETING, THE WIGGLING, IT MADE IT NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO DO MY JOB! I-"

"Tali stop! I'm very sorry Wrex was impatient, but what did I tell you about it?" Tali pondered for a second, then her eyes started smiling, "You said you'd rough him up! Keelah I didn't think you were serious! Can I watch?"

Wrex growled, "Careful quarian, you don't want to make MY shit list." then turning to Emile, "You really want to fight? Let's do it with no armor, you, me, and our fists." Emile smiled as he made his way into the armory to take his armor off, and noticed Wrex following him. "Why are you coming to the armory?"

"This stuff has some complicated locks and seals. Short of ripping the stuff off, the adjustments Tali made to your machine is the only way to take the armor off." Emile took note of the fact Wrex actually called Tali, Tali. _Well isn't this a big fuckin' happy train of friendship._ After quickly stripping to the skin tight jumpsuit underneath his armor, he surrendered the machine to Wrex. As the mechanical arms were stripping the exoskeleton off of Wrex, Emile asked, "How's the new addition to your armor anyway?"

Wrex suddenly gave a huge smile, "I didn't think it was worth it, but after just a few minutes in the damn thing, I never wanted to take it off! It's like it makes me better." Emile could understand, even though no where near the quality of the MJOLNIR armor, the SPI armor he and all the other threes had been given at first was like falling in love. It was hard to wear anything else after wearing something that makes you better.

Emile's thoughts were cut short as Wrex stepped off the machine and started stripping naked, "Whoa, whoa, WHOA! Now just hold on Wrex, you are not getting naked!"

Wrex frowned, "But that's how true krogan fight as equals, no armor, just our fists and strength." _Jesus motherfucking Christ! _Emile thought, _this entire situation is just wrong._ "Well wait here while I get you some freakin' clothes man. You can't walk around the Normandy naked man!"

Emile came back with an outfit he had found amongst Wrex's meager belongings and tossed it to the still naked krogan, whilst shielding his eyes of course. _They sure don't make 'em pretty, do they?_

After Wrex was dressed, the two made their way down to the cargo hold where the sparring mats were set up. "Alright rules are simple, no below the belt, if you know what I mean, and no biotics. Like you said, our fists and our strength."

Wrex didn't even wait for Emile to get into a ready stance before he charged, fortunately for Emile, he was a Spartan. Emile dodged the charge and made a quick dive for the legs, picking them up and pile-driving the huge krogan into the mat. Once on the ground, Emile's greater speed and equal strength proved to be the difference as Wrex tapped out in thirty seconds.

"C'mon T-Wrex! Let's go! I thought you were a krogan, not some leaderless grunt!" _oh shit there I go again._ Fortunately, Wrex didn't bother noticing as he roared and charged again, _thought he'd have learned from last time._ Emile caught him head on and used Wrex's superior weight against him in a suplex maneuver, sending him crashing to the mat on his head.

And so went the sparring match over the next hour, Emile would win the vas majority of the matches with superior speed and technique, but for the first time in a long time, Emile lost a sparring match. Wrex had used his superior weight to his advantage, pinning the smaller, though not by too terrible much, under his bulk and pummeled him until Emile called quits.

At the end of their sparring session, both warriors were smiling. Wrex because he finally had a good fight since Fist's bar, and Emile because he finally had a sparring partner he didn't need to go easy on.

After a quick shower, Emile slipped on some pants and began composing his mission report for the Council. He had nearly gawked at Joker when he told Emile he had to do paper work. _That was never in the job description._ _Fuck, most of my commanding officers didn't believe I could read!_ Nevertheless, here he was sending away his first report as a spectre.

Finally a call came in from Chakwas, Liara T'soni was awake. He called his team and told them to assemble in the comm. room.

He arrived in the med-bay to Liara retelling a nightmare about a skull-faced demon. "Yeah, that was me. Can't really believe you actually fainted when you saw my helmet." Liara looked at him wide eyed, "Oh Goddess!" _Yes! An alien slang that makes sense!_ "I'm so incredibly sorry! I did not mean to call you a demon, I-I-"

Holding a hand up to stop her, Emile said, "Relax, you're not the first to call me that. I need you to follow me though; we got some questions for ya." Liara, looking thoroughly relieved, nodded and followed him up to the comm. room.

On the way she asked about who he was, "I'm the commander of this ship, as far as you should be concerned, my name is Commander. I'm also the first human spectre, and my mission is to hunt down Saren, whose second in command, is your mother."

"Benezia? Why is she following Saren?" Emile sighed, "We were hoping you would know."

They walked into the comm. room to find the team assembled around the table whispering. Emile's enhanced ears picked up the whispering just before it stopped, and was surprised to find they were conspiring to find out more about him, not T'soni. _Shit, they're probably starting to piece this shit together. If this gets much worse, I'm going to have to start explaining._

"Alright team, this is Liara T'soni, which I'm sure you already knew, Liara this is the Freak Show." Liara's eyes widened to comical proportions as she asked, "Why would anyone wish to call themselves freaks? Is such discrimination not despised?"

"It's a joke, Liara." Kaidan explained, "The commander is just referring to the fact we're an unconventional team with a rather… unorthodox commander. I'm Kaidan, that's Ashley, Garrus, Wrex, and Tali." Liara smiled shyly at the lieutenant, "Thank you Kaidan, thank you all for rescuing me from those unfortunate circumstances I found myself in."

"Wait, so we're not gonna scare her into squealing? I thought her mother was the enemy?!" Wrex harrumphed angrily; it appeared he had been looking forward to making the young asari scream.

"No T-Wrex," Ashley and Kaidan snickered while Garrus and Tali shook their heads, "I've determined that she's no threat to us, she had no idea what her mother was up to. Looks like we hit a dead end."

"So we're no closer to finding this, Conduit, Saren mentioned in the audio log?" Liara's interest was peeked, "Conduit? Why would Saren be looking for the Conduit?"

Emile looked over at the asari, "You know what it is?"

"Well, no. Only that it has something to do with the fall of the protheans." she explained, "I've been studying the protheans for over fifty years now," _Damn! I knew asari lived a long time but,_ "despite the fact I'm only 106 years old, and I think I've come up with a theory ancient life. The protheans were not the first! I know that sounds ridiculous, but I have my evidence to show the rise and fall of plenty of races before them. Every fifty thousand years, whoever is currently in charge of the galaxy is violently casted down."

"Hey Commander, didn't that beacon on Eden Prime give you a vision about something like this?" Ashley pitched in. Liara's gaze turned to Emile, "Vision? Beacon?"

Emile explained the events of Eden Prime to her and what the beacon did. Liara then asked him something that hit him like a ton of bricks, "Can I meld with you? … To see the vision of course."

He weighed the options, on one hand, an alien he just met and barely trusted wanted to see his mind, but at the same time, the prothean expert could make more sense of the vision than just the term Reapers. He quickly made up his mind and gave Liara the go ahead.

"Just try to relax Commander… Embrace Eternity!" Emile immediately felt the presence in his mind, he tried sending his recollection of the vision to it. He could feel that she had received the message and was experiencing the vision. Then Emile started to probe her mind, mostly to confirm everything he knew about her. His mental discipline easily allowed him passage into her mind as he began witnessing her life story. He saw her childhood, her fights with her mother, and finally her talent with biotics, fending off pirates at dig sites. Emile realized that his crew really didn't have any expert biotics, Liara could be that person.

Ending their little meld session, Liara was startled at how easily this human had reached into her mind, yet he had to give her access to his, he was a very strong willed person. Getting her mind back to the vision, she turned to the team, "Yes, the message is a warning, something about Reapers, I'm sorry I couldn't be more help."

"'Salright, maybe you can help us with any prothean ruins we come across, and any situations your biotics might help us with." Liara smiled at the tall human, "Yes I believe I could help with that. Not to mention this would be the safest place for me, should Saren come for me again." _Hmph! We'll see about safe, _Emile thought.

"Hey Commander?" Kaidan called, grabbing Emile's attention, "maybe next time… you could remember a shirt." Emile looked down to his mild amusement, _oh yeah, forgot about that._

**Phew, that took a while, and I don't know why. I feel that this might be my worst chapter, mostly because I was distracted by the Viking's game, which they won by the way, W00T!, and I really couldn't get a good track going. Let me know what you think about this chapter. Also on a side not, I'm terrible with OC's, I mean my first one was an elite named Wurt! For God's sake his name is an RVB sound effect made into a noise! So no, there is really no option for OC pairing, while the plot will be different, all the canon characters should be there.**


	9. Espionage

**Another update! Anyway, I hope you are all enjoying the holiday season, *cough* Christmas *cough*. Sorry 'bout that. Now in regards to some questions I have been seeing in the reviews, I don't think I'll bring Jorge in, Six, I'm a little undecided on. Maybe after Requiem or something, like the Librarian sends Six to a place he is needed or something terribly cheesy like that. The council will end up with some of the Halo-verse's tech, but not yet. I'd like to feel that the awesome firepower wielded by the Covenant would terrify them, but when Sovereign pwns their little n00b fleet outside the Citadel, they're gonna be putting some upgrades on their ships.**

**In this chapter, we have a breather as the Freak Show makes their way back to the Citadel, looking for further leads and any reports on geth movement and some shore leave for the team. Also some gossip at the beginning showing the team getting a little closer to the secret of their crazy commander.**

As soon as Emile left the comm. room, no doubt looking for a shirt, Ashley started talking again, "Okay, so did anyone else notice those scars?"

Garrus scoffed, "Please Ashley, everyone here knows _**you**_saw his scars." Ashley blushed a deep red but continued, "Where'd he get those burns? Most of those scars couldn't have been caused by conventional weapons."

Kaidan nodded, "Yeah, I've been on the same squad as that guy, practically since I got out of BAaT, and I've never seen him come across any sort of weapons that could cause those burns."

"Keelah, you're right, not to mention his armor is way more advanced than anything I have ever seen. Is there anything else like it in the Alliance?" Both Kaidan and Ashley shook their heads.

Garrus shifted uncomfortably, he knew exactly where Emile came from, he had seen the video logs of the Emile's previous combat experience, "Look, maybe you should just drop it, if it's really important, I'm sure the commander will tell us."

Everyone in the room stared at Garrus, and it was Wrex who finally said what they all thought, "You know something turian?"

"What? No, not anymore than you do." Garrus shifted nervously under the intense gaze of his teammates, "Well okay I know plenty, but I promised both him and the Council, that I wouldn't breathe a word of it to anyone without the security clearance." Garrus said with newfound conviction, and quickly made his way out the door.

Ashley stared after the retreating turian, "I'm going to pursue Garrus, and Kaidan see if you can't get anymore information out of Emile, you're his best friend, he'll listen to you. Tali see if you can't get his armor, there has to be logs or something in there that will give us some clues. Not a word of this to the commander got it?" After she received nods from everyone present, she asked the newest team member, "Did you see anything when you melded with him?"

"Oh, no. His mental discipline was very strong; all I got was what he wanted me to see nothing else. Though I have to say, you show complete trust in him yet here you all are, plotting behind his back. Is this a human thing?"

Kaidan shook his head, "It's not that we don't trust him to lead us, we just don't like things being held back. Trust should be two ways in a team, and if he's not going to give it to us, then we are going to force him to give it to us." Liara nodded her head.

After Emile had gotten a shirt from his quarters and was just arriving to the cockpit, "Hey Joker, take us into the Citadel, and tell the crew they got one day of shore leave." Emile had come to the decision of going to the Citadel to see if anyone there had any leads on the geth.

He headed off into the armory to get his armor on and found Ashley and Garrus messing with their weapons. "Hey guys, what's going on?" he asked as he found the room suspiciously quiet.

"Nothing Commander, I was just trying to get Claws to open up." Ashley said, shooting a glare over at Garrus. "Riiiight… well anyway I was going to get my armor on, we're stopping off at the Citadel for a day… you alright Cheeks?" Ashley had started to cough as soon as Emile's armor was mentioned.

"Nothing Commander, but why are you putting your armor on so soon? I mean it will be a few hours before we hit the Citadel. Doesn't that armor get uncomfortable? Besides, if you're gonna chat with anyone until then, wouldn't it make more sense to not wear the skull?" Emile stared at Ashley, "Oookay, I'll be back in an hour."

When he left the armory, Ashley let out a huge breath of relief, Tali was tinkering with it in the science lab. Speaking of which, Ashley made her way over across the hall to the science lab, "How's it coming Tali? Emile's gonna catch on to us if it's not back in an hour."

Tali looked up from her work, "I've already got several files downloaded. The encryption is incredibly heavy though, I've got a program started to decrypt it, but it might take a week or so."

Ashley nodded, "Good job Tali, now let's get his helmet back."

Emile wandered through the ship looking for his newest teammate, Liara. He searched around the third level for a while, and found Kaidan and Liara coming up the elevator, "Oh hey Commander, just giving Liara a tour around the ship."

"How you settling in, Li?" Liara looked confused, "My name is Liara, Commander, I don't know if you ju-" Kaidan quickly stopped her, and told her it was just a nickname, which led to another set of questions about what nicknames are, _Thank God Kaidan's such a ladies' man, I would never have the patience for this stuff._

"Well just so the two of you know, we're pulling into the Citadel in about fifteen minutes, you got shore leave for one day while I look for leads on Saren." He left the two to discuss plans for shore leave as he remembered his armor.

"So, Liara." Kaidan said, grabbing her attention, "when was the last time you had a day off from researching? I was going to go check out a new club in the wards, Flux" Kaidan was nervous, he was asking someone he had just met on a date. To his relief she nodded with a smile.

Emile heard the trade and shook his head, _Jeez Elvis, you sure move fast._ He stopped off in the armory to find it curiously empty, _Cheeks sure was acting weird earlier_. A few minutes later, and Emile was fully decked in his armor. He quickly moved to the cockpit of the ship, to find Joker bringing them into dock.

He and the rest of the non-essential crew made their way into the Citadel. He noticed Garrus and Ashley were walking off together, with Ashley apparently begging Garrus for something. _No, that's ridiculous._

"Come on Garrus, just tell me. We're going to find out eventually! What is up with the commander? Is he part krogan? I mean, that's really the only way I could imagine he could have survived that fall on Therum." Ashley had been pleading with Garrus for the past half an hour, following him all over the Presidium, the Wards, even going so far as to follow him to the door of the bathrooms.

"Ashley, please. I'm not going to tell you anything, except that I can assure you, he is **not** part krogan, which is just ridiculous." Garrus responded with the same answer as the other hundred times.

"Alright fine! I give up, you are the most obstinate, stubborn turian I have ever met!" Ashley yelled at him, then she took note of where they were, "Why are we looking at armor sets?"

"Well technically I was looking at armor, you were annoying me. My new sniper rifle has some terrible kick; I was looking at the Terminus Assault armor. It has the extra padding on the rifle shoulder, and other features that would help my skill set, it masks body heat, a new visor that would sync up with my sniper rifle, and the visor has thermal sensors equipped. With this armor I could spot geth from three miles out, and sneak undetected right up to them." Ashley was impressed, and remembered that she had had some problems with her armor on the last mission, mainly the kinetic barriers were weak and slow to charge back.

So that was how Ashley and Garrus spent the next few hours, picking out an armor set for her. When they were ready they went up to the salarian behind the counter, "Ah yes, what can I get for the lovely couple today, hm?"

"Uh- we're not- not a couple- NO definitely not- I don't even like her- me neither- we're not even here together- who are you?" the two tried to deflect the salarian's observation, it wasn't working. "You can't fool Morlan, but it doesn't matter, what can I get for you?"

Garrus cleared his throat from his embarrassment and responded, "I'd like to get fitted for the Terminus Assault armor and-"

"-and I'd like to get the Predator X armor please." Ashley concluded for Garrus. The Predator X armor was a deep green camouflage pattern. It used thin armor plates of super dense titanium alloy, keeping the profile small without sacrificing protection. It also was equipped with triple strength kinetic barriers compared to her current Phoenix armor. As an added bonus, it had a belt with about a dozen compartments to hold tools and grenades and thermal clips, not that she needed to carry many thermal clips with her new rifle.

With Kaidan and Liara, "I'd like to thank you Kaidan for inviting me, I am glad I have someone to spend time with."

Kaidan shook off her thanks, "Don't worry about it Liara, besides it's always easier getting into these places with a beautiful asari as your date." Kaidan said, winking suggestively. Liara's cheeks turned purple at the human's blatant compliment.

They entered the club to a near drowning base, "Why is the music so loud? Do these people not want to hear each other speak?!" Liara said to Kaidan over the loud music. "Yeah, why do you think I brought you? To talk?" Kaidan teased and led her to the bar.

Before Emile made his way up to the embassy to talk with Captain Anderson, he made his way to the armory in C-Sec. After a short conversation with the turian in charge there, Emile made his way over to a work bench. The Mattock he had found in the ruins on Therum was quickly placed on the bench and disassembled. Emile had realized he needed to find a weapon capable of taking on targets at a range in case his team wasn't there. His Carnifax was fine for any range just beyond his shotgun, but he needed more.

When he was done making the modifications, he looked at the rifle. He had modified the onboard VI to make larger bullets from the inner block of lead, which would mean he'd have to replace the block after one hundred shots, but it increased the power to a level similar to the new Viper sniper series. He also included the feature found in Ashley's Reach rifle, two thermal clips that would switch after every twelve shots, with the hot one having its heat transferred to Emile's suit and dispersed in just three seconds.

Placing the new rifle, he had deactivated the fold up ability, next to his shotgun on his back, he headed for the nearest cab terminal.

"Commander? Commander, over here!" Emile looked over to see a rather homely woman wearing a blue dress with a camera floating next to her. He walked over, "What?"

"Khalisah al-Jilani, Westerlund News," _Oh shit,_ "the people have some questions for the first human spectre." _Oh nononononononono, _"Sure" _What are you doing mouth?!_

The interview progressed with Emile answering questions to the best of his ability to dodge whatever she brought up and bring something positive to his position, usually in the most rude and aggravating way possible. Emile soon caught on to what was going on.

"Hold up!" he said, putting his hand to the camera's lens, "you trying to play me for a fool? It's quite obvious you're up to an agenda here," in a flash, Emile's kukri slashed the camera in half and tipped under Khalisah's chin, drawing a thin bead of blood. The crash as the camera pieces fell to the ground attracted the looks of nearby C-Sec officers, who recognized the new human spectre and quickly went back to their own work.

"Now you listen here, don't think I won't drive this blade straight up to where your brain used to be, I'm a spectre, the rules don't apply. And don't think I won't be hunting you down and doing it anyway if you ever bother putting this on air, crystal?" The homely reporter quickly nodded her suddenly pasty white face and scrambled off to whatever hellhole she had crawled out of. _Press, wish I was back in my own universe, they kept their distance there._

Emile showed up to the embassy, "Ah, Commander, we were just looking over your report of the events on Therum." David Anderson said as soon as Emile walked in the door.

"Yes, the destruction of an entire prothean ruin. Was that necessary Commander?" Emile just glared at the ambassador, and Udina immediately shrank from the unchanging visage of the skull.

"It was that or fail the mission, mission comes first, _Ambassador_." Anderson looked amused at the scared ambassador, "We fully understand that Emile, and you did one hell of a job, but are you sure you can trust Liara T'soni?"

Emile snorted, "Yeah she's trustworthy, besides, Elvis is already giving her a once over at Flux." Captain Anderson laughed at that, he was well aware of Kaidan's reputation with the ladies, having been told plenty of stories by his former XO.

"Well I know you're not here just to shoot the shit as it were, what are you here for son?" Emile got back to business, "I'm here looking for new leads on Saren, sir."

Anderson frowned, "Well I heard Exo Geni lost contact with one of their privately funded colonies, Feros I believe. It isn't much, but it's all we got for you." Emile shook his head privately, _they lose contact with a colony and they aren't mobilizing an entire battle group? _

"Alright, I'll get my crew back from their leave and we'll head out immediately." Emile quickly sent out the message and practically jogged to the Normandy, _Yes! A mission!_

"Goddess, a mission! Couldn't you have turned your omnitool off?" Liara complained. Kaidan looked over at Liara as they were leaving Flux, "I take it you enjoyed your time?"

"Oh yes! It was the most fun I have had in so long. This was my first time doing anything not related to the protheans in quite some time." Kaidan smiled, _first date, a success_.

Ashley and Garrus had been purposely ignoring each other ever since the awkward situation with the salarian earlier, so when the two literally bumped into each other at the elevator the awkwardness, resumed.

"Um, hi Ashley."

"Garrus… nice armor."

"Uh, you look nice too. Um… i-in your armor, that is to say, your armor is also very nice."

"Shut up Garrus."

"Right."

Soon enough everyone was piled back on the Normandy, and they set off for Feros.

**Sorry for the breather chapter, but any good story should have some character development. As you can see, my plan for Ashley involves Garrus. Huh? Who could honestly say they saw that one coming? As far as I know it's never really been done before, and I wanted to be the first. And Kaidan, the ladies man, putting the moves on Liara. I'm fairly confident that this was in fact, my worst chapter to date, mostly because I think some of the ideas may have come off as stupid.**

**Review, don't want to write what you don't want to read.**


	10. Yay Puppy!

**Hello everybody, getting into a rhythm of one update a day aren't we? Jumping right into something I saw in the reviews of last chapter, Emile is not going to get spaced and brought back by Cerberus. In fact, there will be a few chapters in between ME1 plotline and ME2 plotline, where Emile basically hunts down the Illusive Man, doesn't quite get him, and then finds out about the Collectors, then he uses Cerberus' huge information network to hunt down squad mates, and find a way to stop the Collectors. That is how it is going to go down, generally. Quite a few major details will be different, as I promised earlier.**

**In this chapter Emile has a chat about celibacy with Kaidan, runs over geth with a mako, and fights hoards of really creepy creepers.**

They were about thirty minutes out from Feros colony when Emile pulled Kaidan aside. "So, how was your date with your new girlfriend?"

"I don't know what you're talking about Commander, Liara and I just went and had some fun at the new club." Though he couldn't see past the skulled visor, the skull itself seemed to express a certain amount of disbelief, "I'm sure, just keep that stuff in your pants man."

Kaidan's eyes widened, "Uh, yeah sure Emile, whatever you say."

"Alright team, listen up! The Normandy's just too damn big to fit in the docking bay's they have on the surface. So while the Normandy engages the fleet above the colony, we'll be taking a rinky dink shuttle to the surface, clear?"

With no questions fielded by the team, all seven of them piled into the new troop transport shuttles that had entered into service just a few months ago. It looked similar to the old Kodiak shuttles that had recently been scrapped by the Alliance. The major difference was the large mass accelerator barrel sticking out the front, and two automated point defense GARDIAN lasers that stuck out just in front of the large side hatches. The changes were made when the Alliance got their collective heads out of their asses, and realized the Kodiak was a defenseless death machine for the people riding in it.

Another difference was the fusion reactor powering the new pulse engines in the hollow spot the old Kodiaks used to have. These engines made the ship heavier, but faster.

Soon the bay door opened wide, and the shuttle sped out in to the inky blackness. It wasn't long before the blackness was thrown aside in favor of a geth cruiser exploding into a million pieces, "YAHOOOOOOO!" _Joker's havin' fun._

A couple of geth drop ships tried to pull along side the shuttle, but the small, yet powerful, lasers made short work of them. It took about fifteen minutes but the shuttle soon pulled into a small alcove.

A young man immediately ran up, "We saw you coming, Fai Dan wants to speak with you." Emile looked at the kid, _most people at least have a reaction to my helmet, his eyes, seem empty._ "Lead the wa- OH SHIT!"

Emile threw the kid out of the way and barely dodged the rocket that was aimed for the kid. Wrex took the opportunity to try out his brand new machine gun on the fifteen geth that stood in the hallway. Soon enough a thunderous roar sounded throughout the ruins as Dragon's Breath came to life, quickly destroying the kinetic barriers and the light armor covering the geth.

"HA! I WANT MORE!" Emile smiled behind his skull, "I'm sure you'll get your chance T-Wrex. Q-ball, you and me got point, Cheeks has our six." Tali looked at the strange, giant human, and just shook her head as she stood next to Emile. As they moved up the stairs, more of those incredibly annoying hoppers jumped down next to them, Emile wasn't surprised when he was able to get his shotgun up in time to waste one, but was impressed when Tali was too. _Q-ball has reflexes!_

They finally entered the settlement to find a complete mess. The people were terrified, the utilitarian boxes they lived in had taken quite a bit of damage, and there were children walking around with pistols in their hands. _Damn, even when the Covies were invading we didn't have to put weapons in the hands of children_.

While they were making there way over to Fai Dan, Emile spoke quietly to his team, "Look at this place, first of all it's a fucking mess, and the people are strange."

Liara was the first to respond, "Indeed, these people, do not seemed frightened, they seem like they are going through the motions, like thralls." Emile just nodded as he finally spotted Fai Dan talking to some woman.

"You Fai Dan?" The small man's eyes widened when he saw them, _at least someone 'round here still has emotions,_ and he responded with a relieved yes.

"Took you long enough!" the woman snapped, "Arcelia please! My apologies, we've all been a little tense since the geth show-" they were interrupted by the mechanical chattering of three geth destroyers moving around the corner.

"T-Wrex, light 'em up! Q-ball, Li, you're coming with me." The destroyers stood no chance against Dragon's Breath and fell immediately while Emile and his two squadmates made their way up one level to find more geth troopers pressing the armed civilians.

Liara threw the shock trooper at the front into the sniper hiding in the back while Tali overloaded one geth's shields while her Eviscerator found the head of another. Emile wasted no time observing his teammates deadly abilities as he had tackled the geth juggernaut in charge of the geth squad. He raised his titanium monomolecular kukri, and drove it into the flashlight face.

"T-Wrex, come up the stairs, Claws, I want you to get to a high position and get on lookout for any approaching geth, Elvis and Cheeks, stay with the colonists and keep them safe." He received their acknowledgments over the teamcomm and quickly motioned for Wrex to stay back a bit while Emile scouted the next room.

What he found was a scout team setting up a landing pad, ten troopers moved equipment around while two destroyers and a prime stood watch, "Okay" he said as he switched on his comm. "we got thirteen geth, ten troopers, two destroyers and a prime. T-Wrex, I need you to light up the whole room in fire while Li and Q-ball take out the troopers, the big guys are mine."

Wrex quickly moved into the room, activating his plasma shield on his left arm and wielding Dragon's Breath in his right, one handed. The room immediately was filled with a roaring as both gun and krogan roared in rage, forcing everything but the prime into cover. The prime, with its incredibly strong shield began to move forward towards the krogan, but was stopped when half a ton of metal, muscle and fury crashed into its head.

While their prime was getting a knife through its data cables, the troopers soon found themselves being picked out of cover by a disembodied force, providing perfect trap shooting practice for Tali and her new shotgun. Wrex, meanwhile, was having the time of his life, any geth that got too close was thrown away by a biotically supplemented swat of his plasma shield, assuming they could get past the inaccurate, one handed, fire of Dragon's Breath.

Emile leaped off the falling geth prime and landed on the back of one destroyer, driving his knife through its "spine" and firing his shotgun into the face of the other. He looked around the room and saw the rest of the troopers being mopped up by very efficient teamwork, _Damn, they sure know how to work._

When the last trooper fell and the dropship above them moved on, Emile got a call from Garrus, "Commander, it looks like they know we're here, they're building a Spirits' damned army to the south on these skyways."

"Good work Claws, T-Wrex will stay here with you, Cheeks, and Elvis. Hold 'em off while Li, Q-ball and me take out their head quarters. Which reminds me, anyone know where that is?"

This time it was Kaidan who answered, "Fai Dan says it's to the east, big building, says Exo Geni on it." _Perfect,_ Emile thought, "Alright, they got any transportation we can take?"

"In the garage, you should be by the elevator, they said they have a spare mako." Acknowledging Alenko, Emile and his selected team moved down to the garage where they found the mako. "Alright, Li, take the gun, Q-ball monitor the radio, there may be survivors."

Emile floored it, shooting the mako straight out onto the skyway, "GODDESS! Do you have to go so fast?"

"Time is money Li." Emile crunched a couple of troopers under the wheels when Tali suddenly picked up some civilian chatter over the radio, "Any movement? It's only been a few days since we lost contact with Zhu's Hope." _Okay, survivors, where?_ Tali was unable to actually pinpoint the signal, but said it was coming from somewhere up ahead.

After crushing a few more geth, and blasting the big ones with the cannon, the signal sprang up again. "That's my daughter you're talking about!" _Whoa, bitch has an attitude,_ "We've got movement, doesn't look geth," _they can see us, there!_ Emile stopped just short of a small ramp leading down into an open room, he could see guards just outside.

He waved to the guards who didn't really relax at the sight of the seven foot super soldier with a skull on his face, but they did let him through. He walked towards two arguing figures in the middle, one of them, a whiny little man, pointed a pistol at Emile, "D-don't come any closer!"

The woman shouted at Liara and Tali, "Do you know what this thing is?!"

"I can speak for myself, and I'd appreciate if you don't call me thing! My name is Emile, commander of the Normandy, here to secure this colony from the geth, so I'd also appreciate a little hospitality!" Emile responded harshly. The woman, her nametag read Julia Baynhem, looked properly abashed while the man, Ethan Jeong just kept pointing the pistol. Emile slapped it out of the man's hands, "Get that out of my face fool! I ain't geth. Now what are you doing here? Why ain't you at Zhu's Hope?"

Julia looked over at Jeong with wide eyes, "You said they were all dead!"

"No… I just said they were most likely dead." _Fucking whiny little bitch._ "They're alive, but under siege right now, so stay here, we'll clear the geth from their command center at your executive building." Jeong was about to respond with something but was immediately silenced by the unchanging gaze of the frightening skull.

Julia, however, did speak up, "Commander, I've got a daughter, Lizbeth, she could still be hiding out in some crevice." Jeong quickly stepped up and said, "Just clear out the geth commander, we can take a proper accounting of our casualties on-"

"Damn it, this isn't just some casualty! She's my daughter!" Emile quickly calmed her down, telling her he'd look for Lizbeth, but she needed to stay here.

They got back in the mako, and headed for the Exo Geni headquarters. Soon they were crushing more geth, or shooting them with the cannon. They arrived to the headquarters, with two doors mostly closed not allowing passage with the mako.

They got out and immediately found their radar jammed, _Mutha…_, "Alright, I'll go in first, Li, Q-ball, be ready." Emile slowly moved in, he found a large room, so he quickly placed the shotgun over his right shoulder and withdrew the Mattock rifle over his left, the lead block jutting out the bottom slightly, making it look like a clip. The room seemed empty, but he knew better than that.

He saw a flash of movement behind a wreck at the far end, "SNIPER!" He leaped to the side just as a red beam of light, signifying the round passing by, passed through where he was. Raising the Mattock to his right shoulder, looked down the 3x scope and focused on the flashlight head at the end, BAM, BAM, BAM! Three shots, two in the kinetic barriers, and a third straight through the flashlight. _Thought it'd be more powerful,_ he set his sights on one of the thirty troopers pouring through the door up on the platform above him, BAM, BAM, _there we go._

Liara used her biotics to throw troopers at one another, Tali disabled several of the troopers' weapons with a tech grenade and took advantage of their disadvantage to charge their position and waste them with her Eviscerator. It wasn't long before all thirty troopers in the wave were lying in heaps of twisted metal, _they really don't like being outnumbered._

Emile popped the lead block out of his Mattock by pressing a release just above the trigger, the block was two thirds the size of what it was previously. He slid it back in knowing it would hold out for a while, and located a doorway, but it was blocked by an energy field. He looked around for a little bit and found a way down.

Normally this would be a one way drop, but Emile could easily jump up again. They headed down a narrow hallway. At the end of said hallway, Emile noticed a flash of movement and shot the pistol out of a young girl's hand.

"Damn it girl! Whaddya think you're doing down here? Pointing guns at people!" Emile shouted at the young girl, name tag read Elizabeth Baynhem, _so she's Lizbeth, huh?_ "I'm sorry, I've been under attack from a pack of varren that have been running around here, I thought you were them."

"It's okay Lizbeth, I overreacted, we met your mother by the way. She's safe, we'll take you to her after we're done here." Lizbeth smiled in relief at the news, then she told them what she knew of the geth headquarters. Apparently, there was a small frigate that was clamped onto the side of the building that was serving as ground headquarters. It was also responsible for the jamming of their radios and radar.

"Well that's just all fine and dandy, but it doesn't explain the geth presence. Do you know what they're lookin' for?" A pained expression crossed Lizbeth's face, "If I had to guess, they're here for the Thorian."

"The what? Explain girl." Emile was getting a little pissed at Exo Geni and their employees_. All for the good of the business, but if it saves lives,_ _oh no you can't do that, you ain't need to know!_

"Species 37, or the Thorian, it's a plant, kind of. It doesn't use sunlight like normal plants, and it's old, like, 50,000 years old." Lizbeth's face betrayed her, she knew more.

"Listen, if you ain't tellin' us everything, I'll find out, and I'll carve a pretty little skull just like mine, right over your current one!" Lizbeth was properly cowed, she shrank back and started sniffling and shaking in fright, "Okay, okay! It releases spores, and when people breathe these spores, they become-"

"-thralls." Emile finished for her, "You disgust me, I should carve your pretty little face up anyway, those people at Zhu's Hope are just experiments to you aren't they! AREN'T THEY!" Emile suddenly realized how he must have looked. Some skulled monster yelling at a frightened little girl, "Okay, I'm sorry, look you can make it up to the colonists later, right now we need to get you back to your mother."

Emile tossed her up the drop, so she could hide out in the mako tank. As he made his way back he heard a lone growling wail from the far end of the rundown room. Soon more joined it as three large reptilian dogs emerged and started running towards the team. "VARREN!"

BOOM! _One, _BOOM! _Two, _BOOM!_ Three!_ All the varren lay in pools of their own blood, _kind of a small pack._ Shrugging the oddity off, Emile and his team made their way further into the ruins. What they discovered was intriguing. There were a couple of dead geth lying in a corner, and a rather large varren was tearing apart another geth in the middle of the room.

It stopped as soon as the flashlight head went dark, then the beast looked up at the team and did something rather odd. It just barked happily, then went to sniffing the group. It took a particular interest to Emile. "Uh… nice doggy?" It barked happily again. _Okay, weird._ The team moved on, with the oversized varren following them. They crept up a staircase and heard a krogan yelling, "ANSWER ME YOU STUPID MACHINE!"

"I'm sorry, but the attitude will not help things at all."

"Damn it you stupid machine, tell me a bout the Thorian before I blast you're virtual ass into actual dust!" _Hm, that was a good one, I'll save that for later._

Suddenly the varren shot past him, digging its teeth in the krogan's leg, letting Emile run up and put a massive blow to the top of the krogan's head, crushing the skull and killing the massive alien. "Good boy!" Emile leaned down and rubbed the varren's belly, "Who's a good boy?" "BARK!" "Yeah, it's you!"

"I hate to break up the bonding moment, Commander, but we still have a mission to complete." Tali pointed out. Emile nodded sheepishly and motioned them to keep moving, his new ally padding alongside him, claws clacking on the stone floor.

They came across a large… claw that was firmly clamped against the building, "This must be how the frigate is holding onto the side of the building! But the frigate is still a multi-ton vessel, disabling just one clamp should be enough." Tali provided, "But we don't have the ordnance to blow it." They were cut off as the varren started growling.

Emile's first response was to point his shotgun at the reptile, but the varren wasn't growling at them. "Geth! Get to cover." Emile shouted as the varren leaped, and dragged a shock trooper behind cover and tore it apart. Emile was starting to like this reptilian ally, _Eh, he's kinda scary, has got some balls, and is a freak to his own kind, just like me._

Liara cast a huge biotic blast that hung just above the geths' heads, it turned into a singularity and pulled all the geth right from cover, allowing Emile and Tali to finish them off. Emile was impressed, he had never seen anything like that, but he did notice it took an incredible toll on Liara, "You okay?"

"I am well, Commander, I wasn't sure if I could do it, and it will be a while before I can do it again." Emile nodded and turned to the claw, it would take a chunk of C4 to take it down. Or some just a little C12, but that had its drawbacks. The foremost being that Tali and Liara weren't stupid, they know there's no explosive in this universe as powerful as C12, and it had a big UNSC logo all over it. _Oh to hell with it, what better time than now, it's not like the geth set up another claw where we could shut a shuttle bay door on it, that would be careless._

Quickly rubbing the logo off in his left thigh satchel, he pulled it out, C12 looks just like C4; it's just three times more powerful. "Commander, there's no way that much C4 is gonna take this claw out!" Tali pointed out. Emile just sighed, "Trust me, I trust you to watch my back with a gun, so trust me, you're better off," he moved his two teammates and the varren behind a wall, "not knowing some things." BOOOOOOOM!

The clamp failed, the frigate started sliding, and it fell off and landed with a tremendous crash. "Well that takes care of that, let's radio the ground team." Emile tried several times as they made their way back to the mako, "Damn it! They just won't come in!"

They got back to the mako and the varren was the first to jump in, "AAAAAAHHH!... oh it's just the guard dog."

"Guard dog?" Emile asked.

"Yeah, one of the guards found this one as a baby and trained it to scare away the other varren, that's why the packs stayed in the sewer." Lizbeth explained.

"huh, well he's one hell of a geth killer. I like him, I might just keep him." Emile said, much to the horror of Liara, as the varren was panting straight into her face. "Aww, he likes you Li." The varren just barked happily, sending spittle into their face.

They drove back, not encountering any resistance, _they must really be concentrating on the colony, means the gang is still kicking, must be too busy to answer their radios… or they're thralls._ He posed his question to Lizbeth.

"No, it usually takes weeks to properly infect someone. Oh and Commander? They weren't just test subjects to me; I was actually on suspension for protesting the companies methods."

"Yeah well you still could have told someone." Emile pulled up next to the small hideout that the Exo Geni employee's were hiding, "C'mon, I think we should have a 'chat' with Jeong."

"You can't do this Jeong!" Julia yelled, "Everybody just stay back!" Jeong yelled back, waiving a pistol around.

"Get away from her!" Lizbeth screamed, running up to her mother. Jeong looked back to where she ran out from, and saw nothing.

"Lizbeth!" Julia cryed out in joy, then her tone turned sour, "Jeong got communications back up with Exo Geni headquarters, they want the colony wiped clean." That was all Emile needed, he leapt out of cover, varren in tow, and crossed the gap in just three seconds, just enough time for Jeong to turn around and see a massive skull collide with his, knocking him out cold.

Every security guard put their guns up on the duo of Spartan and varren, until Julia told them all to put their guns down. "Well, at least he's taken care of, but what about the colony?"

"They're most likely still under siege, I need to get back there soon as possible, c'mon dog!" Emile sprinted back with the varren in tow, right past his teammates and into the mako.

They were just about to take off when the radio sprang to life, "Commander! Commander are you there?"

"Yeah I'm here Claws, what's going on! You guys haven't been answering your radio!"

"Things are bad Commander. We're running low on thermal clips, Ashley and Wrex are the only ones still shooting at this point, I have civilians scrounging up some from the battlefield while I keep watch, but this is no place for them. To make things worse, I got two colossi supplemented with five primes headed our way. I can't see us taking them down without a tank, or three."

Emile stopped the tank right where the skyway was broken down into a ramp leading down to the colony. He could see the aforementioned colossi and primes from his current position.

"Q-ball, Li… Trip, the varren I mean, you gonna want to hold on tight."

He backed up to the wall, and surged forward as fast as possible, and hit a piece of debris to use as a ramp. He engaged the jets on the bottom of the mako, making them soar through the air…

**Oooh a cliffhanger! How upsetting, and exciting. I will go through the Siege of Zhu's Hope in the next chapter, and don't worry, the colonists will still go crazy on them, just not yet. Hopefully I'll finish the Feros ark by the next chapter and I can get on with character development, I'm gonna have to break Emile's secret soon, but before or after Virmire?**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	11. Nasty Plant Thing

**Another one! (He just doesn't shut up, does he?) I don't really have any concerns to address, at least, not yet. And just so you know, the varren Emile picked up, is named after my dog, Trip.**

**This chapter starts off about halfway through the last one, with Garrus, Wrex, Ashley and Kaidan holding off the invading army, it will end with the destruction of a major plant, thingy.**

Garrus looked through the scope of the Finger of God, "Ok, Wrex hold the front line, Ashley back him up and Kaidan use your tech and biotics on the shock troopers, I'll take care of the big ones."

"Sure, we'll do all the real work, while you sit up there nice and pretty huh Garrus?"

"Gee Ashley; you really think I'm pretty?" Garrus responded, through the scope he could see her blush.

"Save it lovers, we got geth, turian, get to work." Wrex grumbled over team comm. He was really excited though, this would be a true test of his new gun and armor. CRACK! Provided the turian didn't kill everything first.

A few minutes later and a column of geth could be seen, they were making they're way past civilian cars that were sitting in smoldering wrecks. Kaidan started plucking troopers out from behind cars while Ashley put accurate fire from her Reach into their defenseless bodies.

Not to be outdone, Wrex spooled up Dragon's Breath and let loose hell. Any geth that was caught out in the open was immediately ripped to shreds, the rapid fire of the incredibly powerful machine gun blasting through kinetic barriers and machinery with ease.

All the while a steady CRACK could be heard from three hundred feet above and behind them, sparing no mercy upon the destroyers and juggernauts that made their way forward.

For a while, the team was impenetrable, no matter how many geth they fielded, only a limited number could fire at a time. But soon, Garrus ran into a problem, he was running out of ammo. The magazines the Finger of God used could hold eight thermal clips, he only brought four magazines and sixteen extra thermal clips, and while, each shot was a kill, the geth were fielding way too many enemies.

"Guys, I got three more kills before I'm out of clips. I've got civilians scrounging some up for me, but they were stretched thin as it is." Garrus hated letting the team down, even if there was nothing he could really do, Kaidan had replied similarly. The situation was bleak.

_Wait a minute, what's that?_ Garrus thought as he looked out past the veritable army the geth had fielded. It was their undoing. Three colossi and five primes marched in a triangular formation towards the colony, _Damn it! They reeeaallly want this colony_.

He keyed his radio to signal the commander, "Commander, Commander are you there?"

"Yeah I'm here Claws, what's going on! You guys haven't been answering your radio!"

"Things are bad Commander. We're running low on thermal clips, Ashley and Wrex are the only ones still shooting at this point, I have civilians scrounging up some from the battlefield while I keep watch, but this is no place for them. To make things worse, I got two colossi supplemented with five primes headed our way. I can't see us taking them down without a tank, or three." Garrus responded, he felt hope leaving him, one battered up mako the commander was in wasn't going to do it.

Then he saw aforementioned mako, flying through the air as his radio was blaring, "WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOO!" the mako slammed into the lead colossus, sending it tumbling over the far edge, and crushed the two primes flanking it.

Then the tank was still, _Spirits! Please tell me their alright in there!_ A prime approached the unmoving tank, when suddenly the hatch burst open and a varren sprang up, latching its six inch tusks in the exposed wiring and hydraulics of the neck.

Emile had waited till he saw the prime get close enough, then sprang the trap, "GET 'IM TRIP!"

While the varren was ripping machinery out of one prime, Emile leapt from the mako and drove the business end of his shotgun in the face of another. With his shotgun inside the protective sphere of the kinetic barriers, the colossal machine had no protection from the most powerful shotgun in the universe, BOOM! The prime fell backwards to the ground while Emile leapt onto the back of the nearest colossus.

He pulled out his grenade launcher, stuck the barrel between armor plates, and fired, but, held the trigger as he hopped to the next one. BOOM! He let go of the trigger on his launcher, and watched the massive geth crumple to the ground, self destruct sequence was too damaged to even fire.

Meanwhile, Tali recovered her wits first and took the cannon of the mako, using rapid fire to distract a prime while taking down its shields, then using the cannon to blow it away. She swiveled to find more enemies, but found only twisted metal, and a varren looking up at her happily.

Emile leaped off the last colossus just as it exploded, landing behind Trip. "Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy, Trip?" Emile petted the massive varren as it licked his helmet.

"Uh, is this going to be a regular thing?" Tali asked, she didn't get an answer. She looked around for Liara, and found her retching behind a pile of twisted metal, "I'm… never… getting… in a vehicle with him AGAIN!"

The two others just laughed at her. Emile went to inspect the mako and found that all three axles had snapped, this thing wasn't going anywhere, "Looks like you got your wish Li. C'mon, the boys still have a couple columns of geth to deal with.

Wrex was having fun, there's simply no other way to describe it, and he was able to really test his gun. Stupid geth kept hiding though. Every now and then, one would get close enough, and Wrex would activate his plasma shield and cut them down with the bottom edge. Oh, and the motorized exoskeleton, OHHHH the exoskeleton. It made everything effortless, from bashing geth, to sprinting across the battlefield to bash geth. Oh yes, it fit the whole range of fun for Wrex.

Then something weird started happening, geth troopers peeking out behind cover, started getting pulled back. And so it continued, one at a time, the geth troopers would get pulled down, and never get back up again. Soon enough one right in front of Wrex was pulled down, then a massive varren started dragging it around, ripping apart machinery as it went, "Alright! A snack!"

Wrex's hopes were dashed as Emile came around the same corner, "HEY! Don't eat my new dog, T-Wrex!"

"Well I plan to! At least before someone names it!"

"You can't eat Trip!" _Damn it._

"Where's the rest of the team Wrex?" Emile questioned, soon he saw Ashley and Kaidan move out from behind some cover further down the road, he looked up to a small dark alcove in the colony building, his enhanced eyesight picking up the dark maroon armor of Garrus, but he seemed to be preoccupied with something.

"Claws come in. Claws?" He got his answer, but the answer still confused him.

Garrus had been watching the oversized varren tackling and ripping apart geth through his scope, Emile seemed to control the thing so he let it be, when he heard moaning behind him.

He whirled around, drawing a standard turian military six inch carbon steel talon, and saw grotesque humanoid monsters shambling up the rubble to his position. _Great, I just had to be out of clips,_ Garrus thought as he slashed at the creepers, a name that came to his mind as he watched them run around. It seemed that the monsters could take a heavy beating, it wasn't until he hacked off an arm and most of the chest of one before it fell to the ground, never to get up again.

"Claws come in. Claws?" The commander!

"Commander, I've got weird zombie things up here. I'm out of thermal clips; I don't know how long I can hold out!" Garrus' answer shot a stick of fear into Emile, _I ain't losin' no more teammates._

"Jump Claws, I'll catch you." Garrus seemed to hesitate, but finally dove backwards. About ten feet from hitting the ground, he was tackled out of the air.

Emile dug his feet into the ground as he skidded along the concrete, Garrus in his arms. They finally came to a stop just outside of the doorway into the colony.

"Nice of you to drop in, Claws."

"Oh, that was terrible, Commander." Garrus responded as he hopped out of Emile's arms.

Emile just chuckled as he fished around in his satchel, looking for more thermal clips, he ended up with eight. He handed them to Garrus, who immediately slotted them into a magazine, "Now where are these zombies you were talkin' 'bout?"

Emile got his answer as three came shambling out of the doorway, "CONTACTS!" Emile ran forward and decapitated all three in one swoop of his kukri. Even then, the creeper bodies shambled around a bit, not knowing where to go, until, on some unknown signal, they all simultaneously dropped.

"Were those the colonists?" Emile wondered aloud.

Liara quickly dissuaded that idea, "Not even this Thorian creature should be able to convert a human into something like this that quickly." Emile nodded while the rest of the team got the story about the Thorian from Liara and Tali.

"Okay, if everyone's filled in, we need to find this thing and find out why Saren wanted it, and most likely blow it up." Wrex just smiled while the rest looked nervous about facing potential hordes of these creeper things.

Emile took point, he only had eight shots left on his shotgun, so he had his Mattock out. Wrex and Ashley came up right behind him, with Liara, Tali, and Garrus taking up the rear position. The first thing they came across was two colonists with guns.

As soon as the colonists saw them, they started firing at the team. Emile let the rounds harmlessly splash against his two layers of shields and grabbed the two of them. He slammed them together with just enough force to knock both of them out cold.

"Okay, colonists are hostile, try and use non-lethal force, which means you Wrex." Emile heard Wrex grumbling something about no fun.

The team made their way through the colony, constantly being ambushed by creepers and colonists alike. Liara and Kaidan made good use of their biotics against the colonists, usually slamming them into a wall to knock them unconscious, while Wrex used his plasma shield to chop creepers in half and Tali blew heads off with her shotgun.

Garrus used one of his precious few shots on a creeper. It… jellified the creeper's chest, and the one right behind it; in fact, the shot killed five creepers before impacting a wall, sending shrapnel flying everywhere.

"That's why I love this gun." Garrus smirked at the others' expression of awe. They finally reached the place specified by Lizbeth, a crane holding a piece of the freighter over the entrance to the Thorian.

Emile could sense someone was still around, he looked around and his eyes settled on Fai Dan. He was holding a gun at them, "It wants me to stop you, but I won't let it. I WON'T LET IT!"

He began moving the gun towards his own head, but before he could pull the trigger, Emile raised his Carnifax and shot the pistol out of Fai Dan's hand. With a blood curdling scream, the possessed man sprinted towards Emile, only to run straight into the Spartan's fist, knocking him out cold.

"Goddess, this thing is truly a twisted, vile creature to do that to someone." Liara muttered in horror. The only three to seem undisturbed were the Spartan, krogan, and varren.

"Let's go, Trip lead the way." Emile said to the big reptile. Trip barked happily and started sniffing his way down the stairs. The varren led the team until it started growling angrily at something ahead.

Emile looked around the corner and saw… something. It was massive, and it hung by mucus covered tentacles. _Holy shit…_

"Keelah, how are we going to take this down?" Tali whispered. Emile dropped the mostly depleted lead block out of his Mattock, slapped in a fresh one, and cycled thermal clips, "With a lot of firepower, Q-ball."

Then the Thorian started moving, and with a great big, and very gross, squelch, squeezed out a… _green asari? I thought they came in one color._

The asari started speaking, "You stand before the old plant, it commands you to be in awe!"

"Yeah, I'm more likely to be sick, who the fuck are you?"

"This… meat, speaks for the old growth."

"Okay, well you gave something to Saren, what?"

"The flesh sought knowledge of the ones who are gone, but it betrayed the old growth. You will pay for your kind's transgressions!"

"Yeah, good luck with that." Emile lunged forward, faster than the possessed asari's mind could process, and threw the green alien over the edge.

Creepers rushed their position, Emile and Wrex just throwing them around like ragdolls, while Liara and Kaidan biotically pushed them over the edge. Ashley, Garrus and Tali were shooting, or in Garrus' case, slashing, their way up a circular walkway that surrounded the Thorian, when they found where one of the tentacles attached to the walls.

"Commander!" Ashley called, "Come take a look at this!"

Emile was just finishing up on the last of the creepers when he heard Ashley call for him. He hoofed it to their position and found what they were talking about, "Wrex, get Dragon's Breath, and saw this thing off."

More creepers came out of the proverbial woodwork while Wrex was hard at work, fortunately, the creepers were very weak and dumb, easily flung about by Emile's fists, and dragged away and chomped on by Trip.

Soon, the tentacle could no longer hold on, it tore apart from the piece clinging to the wall and fell into the abyss. The Thorian screamed in pain, _okay, let's find more._

As they approached the next tentacle, a biotic blast threw Kaidan and Ashley off their feet. Emile whirled around and saw the same green asari from before, _Damn it, I thought only Spartans don't die._

He bull rushed the commando, and received a biotic blast to his right shoulder. Emile was spun around, but he managed to keep a forward momentum going, and withdrew his kukri, shoving it up through the asari's chin, into her brain.

They went through the same process on three more tentacles, each time the asari came back. Finally the massive plant had lost too much support, and screamed as it plunged into the dark abyss below.

"See, Q-ball? Lot's of firepower, good work T-Wrex." Wrex just nodded, he was smiling though. This had been his kind of mission. Lots of fighting, lots of explosions, and a big bang at the end.

Emile was wondering what the hell they had actually learned here when a large pop and squelching came from a growth on the side of the wall. A blue asari slid out, "STOP COMING BACK TO LIFE!" Emile roared at her, shotgun raised, the last shot he had was chambered.

"Wait! I mean you no harm, my clones the Thorian had created were the ones who were attacking you!" Emile held his fire, barely. The whole coming back to life thing was really spitting on the memories of Noble Team.

"Okay, give me a reason not to kill you!"

"I am Shiala…"

"That ain't a reason."

"I served Matriarch Benezia, when she allied herself with Saren, so did I."

"Not hearing a reason not to kill you."

"Benezia foresaw the influence Saren would have, she joined him to guide him down a gentler path, but his ship, Sovereign. It is a dreadnought of incredible power, and the longer you stay in it, the longer Saren's voice sounds more reasonable. The more you begin to see his way as the only one. This is what happened to Matriarch Benezia, and her followers."

"Yeah that sure is a nice story, might tell it to the grandkids one day, but that still ain't enough for you to live, what did Saren want!?" Emile yelled, _bitch is stalling, I know it._

Emile's worries were set aside as Shiala explained what Saren received from the Thorian, "Saren needed the Cipher. It is the essence of a prothean. It is the knowledge and life experience of the entire race. That is what the Thorian held, that is what Saren wanted. It would help him understand the beacon's message."

_Aw shit, that means I'm gonna need it too, I got to let an asari go poking 'round my mind. _"Yeah, well, I got that message too, I'm gonna need that… Cipher thingy too." Emile begrudgingly acknowledged.

Shiala gave it too him, and the message did make more sense, but the pieces weren't all there. "Thanks, I guess, but now what do I do with you. You're a criminal, and if your mind was swayed by Saren once, there's no saying it won't happen again."

Shiala seemed to understand what he was getting at, "Very well Emile, just please, make it quick."

Her acceptance of her fait surprised Emile, _she… no one ever does that! No one!_ Despite his raging thoughts of surprise, he moved behind her kneeling form, withdrew his kukri, and stabbed through the brainstem, the end poked out the front of her throat.

"Let's get out of here." Emile said somberly.

**And another one down. Feros is over, Emile is closer to understanding the beacon's message, and he has a pet. To one reviewer, their will be Miranda, Jacob, and Kelly in the ME2 plotline, just how they end up on the Normandy will be different. I'm still working it out. To another reviewer, this Normandy's interior is almost exactly like the SR2's.**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	12. You Can't Handle the Truth

**Wow, I just won't go away, will I? I'm like a really terrible writer whose stories you feel compelled to read, wait… that's not the metaphor. Anyway, we have a filler chapter, I won't go into detail about the briefing, I might mention it, but it's pretty much just the game, so I really don't think I should have to waste my time writing it.**

**In this chapter Emile heads toward Virmire. This will basically be an interim chapter between missions.**

The team left Feros colony a little better than they had found it. They had power, water, and food thanks to some help from the team. Once back on the Normandy, they had a debriefing. Liara once again wanted to delve into Emile's mind, and was able to decipher a little more of the message.

They were contemplating their next move when a call from the Council came in.

"Commander, how goes your hunt for Saren?" the asari councilor, Tevos, asked.

"Just contemplating my next move now, you got somethin' for me?" Emile asked right back.

"Wasting no time I see, a very good quality for a spectre." The salarian councilor, Valern, stated, "One of our STG teams operating in the Skyllian Verge just went silent. They were scouting out rumors of Saren operating on Virmire."

"So a team went silent, happens all the time with spooks. Why is this so important?" Emile asked, though he was interested in what the STG team was doing.

"Before they went silent, they transmitted a garbled message on a frequency only used by the STG for emergencies." The turian councilor, Sparatus, and an ass in Emile's point of view, told him in condescending tone.

"So you think they found something important, and your sending me to see what it is." It was a statement not a question.

"That is correct; perhaps you won't screw this one up like you did on Therum!" Sparatus was on the verge of shouting, he really hated the fact the humans had a spectre, much less that it was Emile.

Emile looked around the room for any of his teammates, seeing none, he came right back, "and maybe next time I don't save you from fanatical aliens, now that I know what an asshole you are!" Emile really hated the pompous turian right back, if it wasn't for Garrus, Emile would probably hold every turian he met in contempt.

Tevos looked like she was going to say something but was cut off as Emile cut the transmission, _fuckin' asshole, shoulda let him get run through._

Emile told Joker to head for Virmire, and was told slipspace drive had been acting up; they'd have to take the mass relays. _Four days, FOUR DAYS! Those spooks have to sit with no backup, while Saren does whatever the hell he wants for four DAYS!_

He realized he was getting angry over nothing, and headed to the armory to take his armor off, he needed a workout. He entered the armory to find Garrus cleaning his sniper rifle, telling Ashley a story about how they worked off stress in turian ships.

"We held the tie-breaker in my quarters, I had reach, but she had flexibility. Hm, more than one way to work off stress." He finished as Emile stepped up to the machine.

"Yeah, well don't test Cheeks flexibility too much, Claws. I need her in one peace for Virmire." He left the armory to a wide mandibled turian, and a blushing human.

"Ookay, the commander really knows how to ruin innocent story telling. Now let's hear one from you, Williams." Garrus said after regaining his composure.

Ashley pondered for a second, then decided she might as well tell him about her disgraced grandfather, "My father was General Williams, stationed on Shanxi during the first contact war."

Garrus' eyes widened, that wasn't expected, "Oh yeah? Is he a famous general for staging the resistance there?"

"He's an infamous general for surrendering to the turians at Shanxi. It's haunted my family ever since. 'A Williams has to be twice as devoted, if only to avoid suspicion.' That was an old saying of my father. He was so proud the day I became a gunnery chief, the first thing he did was salute. It was the highest rank any Williams have held since Shanxi." Ashley was starting to get a little saddened after telling Garrus that story and he could tell, but what he said confused her.

"On behalf of all turians, I'd like to thank your grandfather."

"Why? Because he just gave into your demands?"

"No, because he saved hundreds, possibly thousands of turian lives that would have been lost in the assault. I had an uncle serving in the invading force, he could have been killed, and I have your grandfather to thank for his survival. Not to mention the fact he saved his own men's lives. The never surrender mentality both our militaries like to pound into our heads isn't the smartest doctrine to have. Sometimes both sides benefit from surrendering, Shanxi was one of them. In fact, I'd bet all my credits that your grandfather's display of level headedness helped the turian government to at least accept your people into the Council. Your grandfather showed us that at least you're not actively seeking out conquest."

Ashley was on the verge of tears as Garrus finished up his rant, "Um, thank you Garrus. I-I guess I never looked at it that way."

In the science lab across the hall, Liara was looking over her data on the protheans she had collected over the years. Mostly she was looking for a connection to the Reapers mentioned in Emile's vision, and she think she had the connection.

It was then that Kaidan walked in, "Hey Liara, heard you weren't feeling so hot after Emile pulled that stunt with the mako, so I brought you some tea. Whatchya lookin' at?"

"Ah, Kaidan, thank you for the tea," she said as she took a sip, she was still a little shaken up from flying across skyways and smashing into giant geth, "I was just looking for evidence to support the Reaper theory the beacon provided us with."

"Oh yeah? What did you find?"

"Well, when you look at the architecture from prothean ruins, they steadily get more and more intricate with their decorations, obviously a result from their increased prosperity. When you look at the most recent ruins however, you get an incredibly plain set of architecture. Archeologists were always looking for a reason why, but if they were fighting the Reapers, a technologically and numerically superior foe, they wouldn't have time for aesthetics."

Kaidan was fake snoring and acted like he was waking up, "Oh, I uh, I was not, asleep. I was not." Liara just smacked him.

Emile walked into engineering just to check in as he was on his way to the cargo bay, "Hey old man, how's everythin' down here?"

"Hey Commander, I just have to compliment you, that quarian girl? Tali? She's really been a boon to engineering. She's given us a lot of time off, in fact we were thinking of playing some Texas Hold 'em, Kenneth managed to talk Tali into it."

"Okay Adams, just don't bet any real money, don't need to break any regs against gambling." Emile warned, he might have to check in later just to see Tali playing such a sleazy game.

"Hey no problem Commander, I won't let things get out of hand." Nodding, Emile turned and walked out of engineering, he wasn't hard on them about the slipspace drive, mostly because no one really understood it, not even the engineers from his home universe.

Finally he arrived in a room tucked away at the back of the cargo bay. Inside this room were weight sets, one was specifically for him, and several treadmills, again, one was specifically for him. He proceeded to spend the next four hours lifting weights and running his frustrations off.

The next morning, Emile woke up at five in the morning, as per the usual, to a slobbering, snoring varren at the foot of his bed. "Mornin' Trip." The varren just kicked his leg at Emile.

Emile headed down to the mess hall; he found Tali there, "Uh Q-ball? What are you doing up this early?"

"Hm, oh Commander, um, it's too quiet to sleep on the ship." Emile was confused, "Too quiet to sleep?"

"Yes, in the Migrant Fleet, if your ship was quiet, then something had broken down. That's why it's too quiet to sleep."

"Makes sense, you need me to find you a place to sleep with plenty of noise? Can't have the best engineer, and my tech specialist tired on the job." Emile asked.

"No I just downloaded a white noise generator to my omnitool, which should help."

Emile realized they had a couple of hours before shifts started, "So, tell me about the Migrant Fleet."

Tali was obviously confused, "Why do want to know? I mean, we're just quarians, no one really pays attention to us."

"Cause you're part of my crew and my team, that's why. I think I should know about your past, your history." Emile explained as he got to work on a nasty concoction of eggs and muscle milk for breakfast.

Tali and Emile spent the next hour going over quarian history, starting with the rebellions, then the vessels in the Migrant Fleet, and finally, politics.

"So you're the daughter of one of the leaders? So what, should I be calling you princess?" Emile asked when she told him she was the daughter of one of the members of the Admiralty Board.

"No nothing like that, but it does put pressure on me to bring back an exceptional Pilgrimage gift." Tali explained, "I thought I might bring knowledge of the slipspace drive downstairs back to the Fleet, but I can't really make heads or tails of that thing. The math is just incredible and I have to thank you for the experience of working on it."

"No problem; what kind of gift would you have to bring back?" Emile asked, if he could help her, he might as well as a thank you for risking her life for the mission.

"Well data on the geth really, any data that would explain how they evolved since they evicted us from Rannoch." Emile just nodded and said, "I'll keep a lookout."

"Uh, thank you Commander, I'd be eternally grateful if you found anything." Tali felt like crap, here was this human, willing to help her on her Pilgrimage, and she was going behind his back and messing with his armor.

"Commander, you should know, some of us are getting curious." Tali started off, but was interrupted by Emile.

"'Bout what?" he asked, though he knew the answer.

"What are you?" she asked bluntly, "I mean, you're not a normal human, you wrestle krogan for fun for keelah's sake, and your armor is the most advanced piece of tech, besides the slipspace engine, I have ever seen. Garrus seems to know, but he won't tell us. I know what you said earlier, about some things are better left unknown, but I feel that we should know. If you really want us to trust you, to not do something… drastic, you should tell us."

Emile sat and pondered for a bit, then he heard the last little bit she said, "Drastic? That's a little cryptic. Q-ball, what did you guys do?"

…

"WHAT!?"

Emile quickly gathered the team in the comm. room, literally dragging some of them from their beds.

"So what gives Commander, I got road rash from you dragging me here." Kaidan joked.

"SHUT IT KAIDAN!" Kaidan immediately realized just how bad it was, he didn't use the nickname Elvis.

"ANY OF YOU MIND EXPLAINING WHY THE FUCK, TALI HAD TO BE FORCED INTO TELLING ME ABOUT THIS?" Everyone immediately knew what he was talking about.

"YOU ALL WENT BEHIND **MY** BACK! why? Why couldn't you have at least fuckin' asked FIRST! And don't say you had nothing to do with it Garrus, you still could have fuckin' told me."

"Commander," Ashley started, "we didn't think you would tell us-"

"SO YOU DIDN'T EVEN FUCKIN' ASK?"

"And that was wrong, we get that, trust me we totally get that now."

"DO YOU? Trust me, payback's a bitch. You are going to earn my trust back down in the cargo bay, HOP TO IT! Not you Tali, thanks for telling me." Emile added after screaming at the rest of the team.

When the properly cowed team made it to the cargo bay, Emile told them to start running laps, Wrex had a different idea.

"You're not making me run laps huma- OOPH!" Wrex didn't get to finish his statement as Emile drove his fist as hard as he could into Wrex's stomach, breaking a few ribs and seriously bruising Emile's knuckles.

"GET BACK UP AND START RUNNING KROGAN!" Emile roared. For the next five hours the team ran, sometimes stopping to puke until Emile pushed them into it again. Finally Emile called for them to stop running, or barely jogging in Wrex's case.

"Would you do more if I ordered you too?" Emile asked the two humans, turian, asari, and krogan in front of him.

"No," Kaidan said, "I'd do it to earn your trust again." Emile's scarred lips twisted into a smile, "Good to hear Elvis, everyone else ten more laps, then hit the showers, you smell terrible."

Everyone knew the trust wasn't completely back yet, but it was a first step. The next morning they were greeted by a much nicer wake up call as Emile just told them there was a meeting in the comm. room at ten hundred hours.

They arrived to Emile sitting down at the far end of the conference table located in the middle of the room, scratching Trip's neck. The varren seemed to sense Emile's current mood and had also taken a somber attitude.

"Sit down everyone; we're going to have a little talk. Don't worry, no one will be doing anymore laps, nor will I be breaking anymore bones, sorry 'bout that Wrex, I was a little mad." Emile said after everyone had seated around the table, "I understand that you're all a little curious as to exactly what I am."

"I will tell you, but I think you should watch a video first." As Emile said that a four sided holographic cube sprang up in place of the Normandy. The sides of the cube started showing images, and they watched select videos from Emile's time during the Fall of Reach. They saw the civilians being slaughtered, they saw Emile's teammates die, one by one, and they even saw the astonishing power of the Covenant and their gigantic ships. But by far the most surprising thing was when they saw him saving the Council's lives.

"So, what Harkin said…?" Ashley started, "Yeah Cheeks, he was telling the truth." Emile finished for her.

"Now listen up, and listen close, the rest of what you're going to hear is about me personally, and it ain't pretty. If you've heard enough, if the alternate dimension story is enough, then you should leave." No one got up and left. Emile sighed, some of them were pretty naïve and innocent, and what he was going to say would ruin those aspects of them.

He told them about the SPARTAN program, how he was plucked from an orphanage when he was five, how he trained to be the best soldier he could be for eight years, how painful the augmentations were. What he didn't tell them was the worst part of it though, he was a SPARTAN III, a suicide soldier. He was never meant to survive his first mission, but like a lot of III's, he kept coming back, that's what got him assigned to Noble Team, he kept surviving the suicidal.

At the end of his tale, Liara was in tears, Kaidan was pale, Garrus was slack jawed, Tali was wide eyed, Ashley looked incredibly guilty, and Wrex just looked impressed.

Ashley finally asked, "So if you started fighting a war at fourteen, how old are you now?"

Emile seemed to ponder for a second, "I suppose I'd have just turned twenty about a month ago, if we assume I turned fourteen when I went through the augmentations."

Liara sniffled, "You don't even know your own birthday?"

"Hell Li, I don't even know if Emile is my real name, I was a little too traumatized to remember, and I don't even have a last name, just a number. A239." Emile responded.

"Hey, so that's why you didn't drink with us on shore leave!" Tali just slapped Kaidan, "This is serious, you bosh'tet!"

"He doesn't deserve our pity," Wrex said suddenly, "he deserves our respect, and our trust. Savor this human, this will be the first time I've apologized to anyone. I'm… sorry." Wrex looked away, towards the ground, looking embarrassed to have to apologize. Emile just laughed at the krogan and said, "S'all right T-Wrex, all is forgiven. Do it again and I'll kill you."

"I know I can't say it enough Commander, I'm sorry." Ashley joined in. "Just try to have a little more faith in people next time Cheeks, I wouldn't have told you right away, but I would have eventually broke down. Just don't turn into a dishonest person; people get killed 'cause of that shit."

"Now get outta here, you all got duties to perform, cept T-Wrex and Li I guess, lazy asses." Emile muttered, _Fuckin' drama was killin' my boat; hopefully nothin' changes between the team. _

The rest of the day was a little tense, until their shifts were over and they gathered for a meal in the mess. Wrex had busted out several bottles of liquor, and a bottle of ryncol.

Emile left the CIC with Williams and the two headed down to the mess. They arrived to Wrex, pouring drinks for Kaidan and Liara, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on down here?"

"Ha! Emile you're here, so tell me, did they upgrade your digestive system too? Or am I gonna have to drink all this ryncol by myself!?" Emile raised an eyebrow at the challenge. Before he could say anything, an already loosened Kaidan chimed in.

"Aw, leave the poor minor alone, he's not allowed to drink!" Kaidan yelled. That was the last straw.

"Gimme that bottle." Emile said as he ripped the ryncol away from Wrex. He tipped the bottom up and drained the whole thing. Wrex's eyes popped wide, he hadn't actually expected Emile to take him up on the offer, ryncol felt to a non-krogan's stomach like liquid glass was being poured over their insides.

Ryncol was by far, the most disgusting thing Emile had ever tasted, and it burned his throat something fierce, but other than that, it was completely fine. In fact, the world seemed a little happier now, and blurry, _my eyes must be goin' bad._ That was the last sober thought Emile had that night.

"Uuugh, what happened." Emile asked as he awoke to a pounding headache. Trip barked at Emile as he sat up, it sounded like a thunderclap to Emile.

"You drank enough ryncol to poison an elcor, your damned fortunate you survived long enough for your body to actually process the alcohol! Don't you know ryncol kills people! Not the alcohol, the liquid kills people! What the hell were you thinking?!" Chakwas' rant was not doing well for Emile's headache, fortunately, his increased metabolism was pushing the after effects out of his system already; in about an hour, he would be just fine.

Finally, Spartan and varren managed to escape their fiercest foe yet, an angry Doctor Chakwas. They were met in the mess hall by Kaidan, Liara, Garrus, and Ashley, "Well if it isn't the inebriated commander, how's the hangover Emile?" Kaidan called, loudly and on purpose, _jokes on him, hangover's mostly gone._

"Hangover? What hangover?" Emile retorted, he grabbed some eggs and toast from the mess sergeant, and sat down, Trip slobbering behind him, obviously wanting some of his food, "Damn Trip, didn't anybody feed you?"

"Gave him a t-bone earlier, but he wouldn't really leave your side, Emile." _Aw, I'm touched!_ Emile patted Trip on the head and flipped him a piece of toast after Kaidan told him about the reptile's devotion.

They ate in peace until Tali came stumbling out of the elevator, "Keelah! Why is everything so bright? And so loud?" _Apparently I ain't the only one who had fun last night._

The day passed without incident, and the next day they arrived to Virmire.

**A little serious there in the middle, and don't worry, not everything is back to normal, there will still be a journey by the team to get back in Emile's most inner circle. Trip is being a loyal varren and Emile got drunk, pretty good chapter eh? Maybe not, let me know what you think about the revelation, I may change it if you don't like it and I get enough complaints.**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	13. The Spartan from the Black Lagoon

**Surprised at the positive reviews of the last chapter, but thanks, not a whole lot to answer according to the reviews so I'll just jump right in.**

**This chapter Emile takes down some anti aircraft towers, meets up with a salarian STG team and spectre Nihlus (thought he was gone did ya?), and comes up with a plan.**

**I am cutting Virmire into three parts, maybe.**

Joker had pointed out several anti aircraft towers that must have shot down the STG ship, and would likely do the same thing to the Normandy; so Emile, Ashley, Garrus, and Wrex were prepping the warthog for a combat drop.

Emile was packing spare thermal clips and Dragon's Breath in the middle compartment that sat right between the two passenger seats, when he heard a high pitched whine from behind him, "No Trip, you can't come along."

Wrex, who really wasn't doing anything, said, "Aw, let the pooch come along. You didn't build him a combat harness for nothin'. Besides, he could ride along in the middle with the guns and clips."

Emile considered what Wrex had said, he had spent the last day of the trip in the Normandy's micro fabricators making what looked like medieval horse armor for Trip. It had kinetic barriers of similar strength to Ashley's new Predator X armor, and was made out of a titanium vanadium alloy that would stop anything short of a sniper round anyway.

"Okay the varren can come, but if he falls out of the hog, it's on you T-Wrex." Emile finally conceded. The varren seemed to understand what was said and barked happily as it leaped into the warthog.

Garrus, who was calibrating the gauss cannon at the back of the warthog, finally spoke up, "This really is a freak show."

"We should all get tats, whaddya say Cheeks?" Emile asked Ashley, who was checking the thrusters for any damage.

"I was thinking we could paint a big skull right on our armor, be like our own merc gang." Ashley responded, Garrus immediately picked up on the idea.

"For those situations where other merc companies aren't brave or suicidal enough, trust the Freak Show to get the job done with as many explosions as possible." He said with a salesman tone.

The group just laughed at the joke while they finished up their prep work.

"Okay guys we're approaching the drop zone, just so you know the fleet out here is massive, I don't think the Normandy is going to be able to take them on. Clear out the LZ so I can set her down." Joker said over the comms.

"You heard the man, get in, and strap in Trip, he don't need to go flying off." Emile ordered as he took the driver's seat. Since it was Wrex's ass on the line, he strapped the oversized varren in before he took his position at the turret.

"Drop in… 3…2…1 Drop!" Joker's voice rang out, Emile floored the gas, causing Trip to yelp at the sudden surge, and the warthog splashed in the shallow lagoon. The Normandy roared past them as it disappeared over some rock formations, most likely hiding from the huge geth fleet above them.

"First tower is to the north, Commander." Ashley called from the right passenger seat, Emile just nodded as he revved the engines and shot into the distance.

Around the first corner they came across a colossus and two armatures on patrol through the lagoon. Emile ordered Wrex to focus on the colossus while he took out the armatures. The first shot Wrex fired splashed harmlessly against the shields of the colossus, indicating that some improvements had been made to the large robots since Therum. However, even with the improvements, the colossus was no match for the second shot as the half pound slug ripped through the machinery of the giant geth, killing it.

Emile, in the meantime, had hit the boosters on the warthog, shooting it forward straight into the first armature, impaling the geth on the large tusks of the vehicle. Emile pulled a ninety degree turn in the warthog, causing Ashley to go a little green in the face and Trip to yelp in surprise, and hit the boosters again, crashing the armature stuck on the front of the hog into the one still on its feet. Emile kept going right up to about twenty feet from the rock wall, sending both geth flying into said rock wall.

"Well that was fun, right guys?" Emile asked as he looked back, Trip had a stupidly happy look on his face, with his tongue hanging out the side, Ashley was still green in the face, Garrus had his eyes shut, clutching his rifle for dear life, and Wrex was smiling, "I love smashing geth!"

Emile just smiled behind the skull and hammered down the gas again, shooting them around the next corner while Ashley shot her breakfast out the window. They dispatched a few more armatures before they came across a gateway. As they pulled up, they could see the geth closing it, "Cheeks, jam their radios, we can't let them know we're not apart of the STG team."

While Ashley activated the warthogs built in radio jammer, Emile cut Trip loose and leaped out of the hog. The two hundred and fifty pound beast sprinted up the stairs and slammed into a geth destroyer, knocking it to its back. When the geth tried to look down at the massive varren, it had its head bit off.

Emile leaped up from the hog, grabbed onto the ledge with his left hand, and swung himself up and over. He threw one unfortunate trooper over the ledge, where Wrex stomped on its head, and blasted another one to scrap with his overpowered shotgun. Emile sprinted towards the last two shock troopers in the gateway, but before he could get there, one was dragged away by a very angry varren. Emile just punted the last geth into the ceiling, wrecking its machinery.

After the little Emile got the gate back up, he headed down to the hog where Wrex stood, looking very cross, "Just steal all the kills for yourself, human! Did you even stop to think I might like to kill something?"

"Tell you what T-Wrex, the next gate is all you and Cheeks." Wrex just snorted and got back onto the gun while Trip hopped into his spot and dug his claws into the metal framework, apparently he had learned just how rough Emile's driving is.

Another fifteen minutes of crushing armatures and blasting colossi, they pulled up to the first AA tower, "T-Wrex, Cheeks, Trip, this is all yours." Emile called out.

The varren was the first one on the scene, yet again, and was dragging a shock trooper down the stairs as Wrex just charged the scene, not even bothering to grab Dragon's Breath. Wrex ran up to the destroyer that met him and gave a mechanically enhanced punch to the middle section of the tall geth, doubling it over so Wrex could drive another powerful punch up into its flashlight face, sending pieces of machinery flying as the geth died from the hit.

Ashley was using her Reach assault rifle to strike down several shock troopers that were trying to sneak up on Wrex while he was punching and throwing geth around like ragdolls. Suddenly the AA tower lost power, and when the duo looked for the reason why they saw Trip ripping apart machinery as several geth troopers lay mangled nearby.

"Good dog!" Ashley said, "Did our work for us!" Trip waddled up to Ashley and tackled her, and proceeded to lick her face.

"Bad dog! Off!" Ashley screamed as Trip kept licking her. Finally, Wrex managed to stop laughing long enough to pull the massive varren off of Ashley, and they got back in the warthog, "What took you so long? And what happened to your face, Cheeks?"

"Dumb, reptilian dog tongue happened to it!" Ashley said under her breath, Emile still caught it though. Emile chuckled as he floored it, spinning the tires in the water, and shooting the hog off towards the next AA tower.

Again, the way was crowded with colossi, armatures, and this time rocket drones, but the hog could take a beating, and Garrus never missed a single drone with his sniper. Eventually they pulled up to the second and final AA tower, if they can take this one down, then the Normandy has a clear path straight to the STG camp.

Apparently the geth had found out the other AA tower had been destroyed, so they had fortified this one. They arrived to two geth primes flanked by half a dozen destroyers standing guard outside the tower.

A shot from the gauss turret destroyed one geth prime, while four CRACKS of the Finger of God took out four destroyers, leaving just one prime and two destroyers flanking it.

"LET'S GOOOOOOOO!" Emile hit the boosters and Ashley had to hang on to Trip as the hog shot forward. The tusks easily penetrated the armor of the prime, gutting the giant machine, and rammed the prime straight into its two buddies hanging out behind it.

"Well, that was anti-climactic." Emile said, disappointed that the fight was over so quickly. They easily cleared out the last tower and shut down the AA gun, and proceeded to head for the camp.

The Normandy roared overhead and they watched it pull around and set down in an open spot up ahead, _must be the camp right up there._

"Commander, Nihlus is here, and he says we're grounded, he can explain once you get here." Joker said, _you've gotta be kiddin' me!_

Emile stopped the hog a few meters from shore and hopped out, Trip hot on his heels.

"Nihlus! There a problem here?" Emile asked the turian spectre.

"The problem is that Saren has a damned army in there, we're going to wait for the reinforcements from the Citadel fleet arrive." Nihlus explained.

"Yeah, there ain't any reinforcements comin', we're all they sent bird boy." Emile explained, "Apparently your message was too garbled to get a clear answer, and what are you doing with this STG team anyway?"

"Spirits damn it!" Nihlus said, "I'm here to assist the STG in investigating this place, I have more experience with Saren than anyone, they thought I'd be a useful advisor. I told them that this was your mission, you should have been the one to go, you already have more experience than anyone fighting the geth, but they sent me."

"Well now that I'm here, you mind tellin' me what's goin' down?" Emile asked.

"This, is Saren's main base of operation, if you couldn't tell by the fleet in orbit, and he appears to be, breeding an army of krogan." Nihlus finished in a near whisper, but Wrex still heard him.

"How is that possible?" Wrex said, hope rising in his voice.

"Apparently, Saren found the cure for the genophage." Nihlus said quietly, looking away from the krogan.

"Aw, now that's perfect, he's got giant killer robots, now he has giant killer reptiles." Emile muttered, "We have to destroy that army."

"No, we have to destroy that cure!" Nihlus shouted without thinking, immediately he found himself in the crushing grasp of a very angry krogan.

"These are my people you're talking about, _**turian**_; I'd suggest you be more careful about what you say." Wrex was about to squeeze harder, but Emile put a hand on his shoulder, and Wrex let go and stomped off to the beach.

"That beast is going to be a problem, Commander. I suggest you put him down." Nihlus said, nodding his head towards Wrex, but he soon found a twelve inch kukri pressed against his throat.

"That _**beast**_ is my friend," _great, an alien is my friend, Carter would kill me for this,_ "and I suggest you show a little respect, he's twice the man you could ever hope to be. I'll talk to him, calm him down, but you insult one of my team again, and there will be a little spectre on spectre crime going on, clear?"

Normally a human would have to look down at a human, but Emile stood just a few inches taller in his armor, so Nihlus had to look up at a minute angle, just to see his own frightened eyes lined up with the holes in the skull carved onto the Spartan's helmet.

Nihlus was a spectre, he rarely felt fear, but looking into the skulled visage as his eyes took the place of the eyeholes, he was terrified of this, _monster_, in front of him. He quickly nodded so Emile would let him go.

Emile walked over to Wrex, who was throwing biotic warps into the water, watching them explode against the surface.

"The line between friend and foe are blurring Emile, Saren's supposed to be the enemy,"

"He is,"

"Then why is he curing my people, while you want to destroy the only hope my people have left!" Wrex turned and shouted, his biotics flaring.

"I never said I wanted to destroy the cure, just the army, Wrex. Besides, those krogan in there, they have as much as in common with you as I do with the rest of humanity! They are tools, and trust me, when Saren's done with them he'll just toss them away, just like when I'm no longer useful, or needed, the Alliance will toss me away, even though they didn't even make me. I'll grab the cure if I can, and trust me, I'll give all I got into getting that cure."

Wrex stared at the passionate human, "Yeah, you're right, the Council neutered us for cleaning up their mess, I doubt Saren will be as generous."

Emile smiled behind his helmet, he was glad he didn't have to kill his friend, _God damn it, friends with aliens._

He headed back over to Nihlus and the salarian STG captain, Kirrahe, to work out a plan.

Over the next hour they finally came up with a solid strategy. Emile and Trip would infiltrate the base while Nihlus, Kaidan, Wrex, and Kirrahe would assault the base, Ashley would pilot the dropship at a low altitude around the base so Garrus could provide limited sniper support for Emile. While Emile will be finding an LZ for the Normandy, Liara and Tali will be jury rigging a nuke aboard the Normandy. Once the nuke has been positioned inside the base, Jenkins and a fire team of marines will protect the bomb while Tali and Liara prime it, after that's done, Ashley will bring the dropship in and pick up the bomb team while the Normandy evacuates the fire team. Fool proof, right?

**So there it is, Chapter 13! Wow did not think I would make it this far. Eventually things will go FUBAR on the mission, but as you can see I tried to make it as different as possible from the actual Virmire mission, while still leaving it recognizable.**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	14. Taking Trip for a Walk

**I am really bored. There is absolutely nothing to do here. Except write stories for you guys I guess. World is supposed to end this Friday, crazy huh. I mean, if the world is gonna end, why am I writing this? Of course there's the ridiculously high possibility the world won't end. It's come to my attention that Emile and his teammates are overpowered! Don't worry, the geth are going to start showing some technological advancement thanks to Saren cheating.**

**In this chapter Emile infiltrates Saren's base, discovers another beacon, and encounters evolving geth platforms.**

Emile parted ways with the rest of his team and moved to his starting position, Trip right behind him. He stopped just short of a geth outpost, it appeared to just be a small tower with a control console, _probably a radio console, and I could disrupt communications with that._

Sure enough, Emile's radio crackled to life, "Wrex, hold the line, give us cover fire. Commander, is there any way you can disrupt communications with the geth? They're coordinating some serious artillery on our position!" Kaidan's voice rang through his helmet.

Emile just sent a short "affirmative" through the comm. as he slipped a silencer on his shotgun and Mattock. He held Trip back until they got close; Emile crept up the ramp at the side of the small radio tower and peeked over the edge. Now was not the time to broadcast his position with a firefight, which would defeat the purpose of the distraction assault force.

He let Trip go and the varren immediately tackled a geth shock trooper standing at the radio console. Emile pumped one silenced shotgun round into another geth moving to shoot the reptile off of its comrade and smashed another one's flashlight face with the butt of his shotgun. With all three geth troops in the tower taken down, Emile activated the radio station and began to broadcast terabytes of junk data through the geth's radio network, essentially cutting off the geth on the frontlines with their command process' in the base.

"Thanks Commander, what ever you did just threw off their artillery's aim." Kaidan thanked him through the comm.

Emile continued down a beach as he approached another tower. This tower had a beachfront defense set up with three shock troopers commanding six troopers and a sniper nest in the rocks above the tower. Emile took aim with his Mattock from behind some rocks jutting out from the ground, putting the crosshairs on the geth sniper's head.

Two shots and the sniper slumped over at its post. The geth on the ground did not notice their eye in the sky wink out. Emile set up shots on the shock troopers while Trip stalked the group on the beach. As soon as the varren pounced on one unlucky trooper, Emile took the shots. The sound of a seemingly random varren attack covered the evidence of a sharpshooter as the three shock troopers fell to the ground, and then another set of shots dropped the geth Trip hadn't ripped to shreds.

From the tower emerged a krogan battlemaster, in more advanced armor than Emile had seen from this universe so far, and took aim at the varren ripping geth to shreds. Emile put half a dozen shots into the krogan, and to his shock, were deflected by plasma shields. The giant alien noticed the shots impact his shields and looked for the shooter. What he found was a fist breaking through the shields and breaking the communications hardware in his helmet.

Angered, the battlemaster roared and charged the Spartan, who spun the reptilian alien to the ground and planted a kukri through the roof of its mouth up into his head. Emile was worried any geth or krogan up the path may have heard the krogan roar, but he was more concerned with the appearance of plasma shields on the dead alien. _Where the fuck did they get __**that**__ technology? Saren had to be, he must have somehow hacked the Alliance data base and stole the tech._

But even that explanation didn't sit right with Emile; Dot had made those encryptions damn near unbreakable. But Emile didn't want to think about where else Saren might have received the technology, _it can't be them, it just can't be._

He looked down the walkway that the tower was attached to. It appeared to be a system of bridges that lead all the way to the compound. He started down the path, nice and slowly, constantly checking his corners.

"Commander!? They're using aerial strikes against us, drones, is there a command station you can destroy or something? Keep them off our backs?"

Emile didn't even bother answering Kaidan, he had already spotted a small refueling station the drones were congregating around. The only problem was the juggernaut standing between him and it.

There was no way to take the massive machine down without causing enough noise to alert the base, so Emile and Trip dropped down below the walkway. They crept silently along the underside of the bridge. When they finally reached the underside of the refueling platform, Emile placed several charges from his chest holsters on the columns holding the platform up and three directly underneath the fuel tanks.

Emile and Trip crept back to the base, charges set to go off once Emile gets inside, and found two krogan in standard armor, they obviously only gave the plasma shields to battlemasters. Trip snuck behind one krogan and sunk his six inch tusks into its left leg, toppling the screaming krogan.

The other krogan guarding the entrance ran towards his mauled companion. As he passed a small barrier meant to provide cover for the guards, he received a long knife plunging straight through his throat, through his mouth, and through his skull.

The krogan dropped dead and Emile and Trip, who was gulping down a chunk of krogan meat, moved into the base. Once inside Emile hit the detonator and alarms rang through the base. He and his varren hid behind a couple of crates as geth ran by, no doubt to check on the explosion.

"Thanks for the assist, Commander; we're not getting anymore aerial attacks. Garrus and Ashley should be moving into position now." Kaidan's relieved voice came through the comms.

"That's affirmative Commander, I've got eyes on the base, and thermals clear outside your building." Garrus' voice joined in.

"Affirmative Claws, I'm movin' out." Emile responded.

He quickly moved over to a terminal once he was outside and quickly hacked the base's security, courtesy of Dot's foresight by adding an invasive viral code to Emile's omnitool, and drew up schematics of the base. He took note of the quickest route to the AA gun, and sent it to Garrus; then he noticed a room that had no label, _interesting, I wonder if Saren's in there._

Emile quickly moved to the door and asked Garrus if he had any signatures inside the next room, "You've got ten heat signatures inside the first room, the room beyond it is too deep to get a good reading… that's odd, some of the signatures in the first room look like salarians."

"Prisoners?" Emile asked.

"Not likely, they aren't being escorted, maybe the same thing that happened to Benezia and her commandos happened to them?" Garrus wondered aloud.

Ashley chose this time to join in, "That indoctrination thing? That's assuming Shiala was telling the truth."

Emile conceded the point, he'd just have to assume hostiles. He opened the door and dropped in another charge from his chest holsters. He slammed the door shut as the chemical explosive did its work.

He reopened the door to find two dead geth on either side of the door, and two dead geth just further along the room. The geth prime in the middle of the room turned to look at Emile and began hammering his shields with automatic fire from its massive gun.

The Spartan quickly took cover behind a column while his loyal varren sprinted past the prime and tackled a salarian soldier to the ground, quickly killing him. _They were allowed to keep their guns; they're obviously the enemy here._

While Trip was preoccupied with five salarians armed with weak pistols, Emile dove out from behind cover, firing shots with his Mattock as he did so. The rounds splashed harmlessly against the giant geth's kinetic barriers, but did distract the machine long enough for Emile to get close and tackle one of the legs. The geth toppled to the ground with a great crash, and received a quick stomp on its head.

Emile turned to help his loyal pet to find Trip stripping one salarian of his thigh meat, "Put the frog man down Trip, we got work to do."

The duo went to the elevator at the back of the room and went down on level. When the lift stopped, Spartan and varren were greeted with the sight of a husk inside a stasis machine.

Holding Trip back, Emile stalked forward towards the machine, he noticed the rest of the room was filled with the things, and scientists studying them, in fact, there was a krogan scientist working on a terminal. _That's where the genophage cure is, almost guaranteed. _

Emile quickly spliced into the network and released every husk in the room, causing chaos as the mindless zombies started pummeling and pounding the scientists in the room. The one in front of Emile started to move but was immediately cut down by the Spartan's knife.

Finally all the husks conglomerated around the krogan at the far end of the lab, Emile let them batter the old krogan for while until it looked like the alien couldn't take much more. He pulled and batted the husks away with his augmented strength and was finally left with a bloody ancient krogan, "I won't let you kill my people! I know you're here to destroy the genophage cure! I won't let you do it!"

"I'm not here to destroy it; I'm here to gather the data you have!" Emile shouted back, "Now tell me how to get it out of these computers, it would save me some time."

The old krogan looked surprised at first, but finally decided that the armored human in front of him was lying, "I won't fall for your lies, human. DIE!"

The old alien started to charge Emile but found a varren tripping him up and mauling him. While Trip was grabbing his third meal of the day, Emile walked over to the computer and started downloading files. The entire cure was not to be found, it turns out he krogan here were not bred, but cloned. But there was significant data to start working towards a cure. Emile downloaded all the related data and moved on towards the tower.

Garrus pointed out an ambush waiting for him around the corner, two geth snipers and a juggernaut. Emile told him to take the snipers as he spun around the corner. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two geth snipers slump over their respective covers as he drove the butt of his shotgun into the midsection of the juggernaut. The machine reeled back allowing Emile to pull up his still silenced shotgun and pumped one round into the geth.

Emile moved up to where the snipers had been hiding and found the controls to the AA gun in the corner. He quickly shut down and disabled the gun, _objective clear, a half hour ahead of schedule._

"Claws, I'm gonna scout out the tower adjacent to this one, I've got a suspicion about it."

"Affirmative, Commander."

The Spartan moved up the elevator, varren in tow. He reached the top and spotted a couple of the annoying hopper geth clinging to the side of the tower and three krogan, one a battlemaster, lounging around the top. _That's one hell of a guard for a no name room._

"Claws, drop the hoppers first, and then focus on the two smaller krogan."

"Gee, you want me to get you some tea too? I'm taking care of all the enemies while you take on one!"

"The big krogan has plasma shields, and a motorized joint system to enhance every trait that makes a krogan strong."

"…oh." Emile snorted at his response. As soon as he saw the first hopper drop, Emile made his move.

He sprinted the distance between him and the krogan battlemaster and pumped a shotgun round into the reptile's shields. They held for the first shot, but the second one collapsed the shields, but before the third one could be fired, the large krogan used his biotics to throw Emile back. Obviously the clones' biotic potential had also been increased as the attack blasted Emile onto his back.

The massive alien charged, oblivious to his underlings dying of exploding skulls behind him. Emile put his feet to the chest of the charging krogan and threw the reptile over his prone form. As the alien hit the ground, Emile sprang up and turned, bringing his shotgun to bear, and put one final round into the beastly alien. _Fucker! That actually hurt._

Emile and Trip headed into the tower and found what appeared to be an office. There were research terminals scattered throughout the room and at the far end was a desk, with a figure hiding under it.

"Alright, up nice and slowly so my varren doesn't rip you to shreds!" Emile shouted. Trip started growling at the desk.

An asari, white markings all over her face, got up slowly behind the desk, "Please don't kill me; I didn't want to work for Saren!"

"So why are you?" Emile asked as he pointed his shotgun at her.

"Once you start, you can't leave Saren's employment, he'll kill you."

"And I'm about to, pokes a hole in your logic there."

"I know and I'm sorry."

"What are you studying here?" Emile queried, there was no biological equipment in here, so it wasn't the genophage.

"The effects of indoctrination that ship, Sovereign, has on people." The asari replied.

"Thank you." Emile said as he pumped a round of buckshot into her, can't let any of Saren's flunkies escape. He went up the elevator at the back of the room to the top of the tower.

He arrived to a two level room. At the top level was a computer console, at the bottom, was something Emile was very familiar with. A prothean beacon, this one was undamaged.

Emile wasted no time walking straight up to the beacon. As before he was lifted into the air, this one was actually able to lift him off the ground, and a vision was burned into his brain. This time he saw the whole message, unbroken, uncensored, and with a tip. _Ilos._

The word Ilos was burned into his brain, whatever Ilos is, it has something to do with the Conduit, and the Reapers.

He fell to the ground, landing on his feet, with a clear memory of the message, and its meaning. He suddenly heard Trip growling. He looked to see what the varren was growling at, and saw that the computer terminal had turned red.

He walked up to it and it suddenly spoke, "**YOU, ARE NOT SAREN.**"

"No I ain't. I'm Emile, who might you be?"

"**RUDIMENTARY CREATURES OF BLOOD AND FLESH USUALLY TOUCH MY MIND WITH APPREHENSION AND IGNORANCE. YOU, HOWEVER, DISPLAY ARROGANCE, YET INTELLIGENCE.**"

"Aw shucks, thanks for the compliment… Deep Throat, but you didn't answer my question."

"**I AM SOVEREIGN, VANGUARD OF YOUR DESTRUCTION.**"

"Cryptic, yet informative. You are the ship Saren rides around in? And the vanguard of my destruction? What is that about?"

"**NOT YOUR DESTRUCTION ALONE, ALL ORGANIC'S DESTRUCTION.**"

"Oooooh… so you're a Reaper. They ain't aliens that killed the protheans; they're giant machines that killed the protheans."

"**THE PROTHEANS AND ALL THOSE WHO CAME BEFORE THEM, ALL LIFE IN THIS GALAXY HAS UNDERGONE CYCLES OF DESTRUCTION AND REBIRTH. EACH NEW SPECIES THAT ARISES FIND THE MASS RELAYS AND THE CITADEL, THUS FOLLOWING THE PATH **_**WE**_** HAVE SET FOR THEM.**"

"So you're not just bent on destruction, but rather harvesting us? For what?" Emile asked, genuinely curious, why create all this technology for organics to use, then destroy them.

"**OUR REASONS ARE BEYOND YOUR UNDERSTANDING, THIS EXCHANGE IS OVER.**"

"Dickhead." Emile muttered under his breath. Fortunately he had recorded the whole thing on his helmet camera, _might have a hard time convincing anyone anyway._

Spartan and varren moved back down the way they came to set up an LZ for the Normandy. As they reached the bottom of the AA gun tower, Garrus' voice sprang up through the comm.

"Commander, you have three krogan and two big geth headed towards you, if you go through them, you'll find a nice LZ for the Normandy."

"Good work Claws; I see them, alert Joker, and tell him to get his crippled ass over here!"

"Already done Commander."

Emile rounded a corner and saw the geth and krogan Garrus was talking about. There was something different about the geth platforms. They stood about as tall as a destroyer, but they were slimmer. Instead of wiring and hydraulics composing their arms, they had what looked like synthetic muscle tissue. They moved much more fluidly than the other geth, like they were more elite.

Emile didn't waste anymore time pondering their meaning and opened fire with his still silenced Mattock. The shots were deflected by incredibly strong plasma shields and as soon as the shots ended, so Emile could cycle thermal clips in his weapon, they vanished from sight.

_Active camouflage!? Where the fuck did they get that? They can't be here, it can't be._ Emile's denial of the seemingly obvious reminded him briefly of the beginning of the Fall of Reach; Jorge had said the same things.

He kept his eyes peeled for the slightest disturbance in the air, the tell tale shimmer of active camouflage, when suddenly Trip just leapt at nothing, and came up with the arm of one of the invisible geth. With its active camouflage disrupted and one of its arms missing, the geth was nearly defenseless as Emile pushed his fist through the flashlight optics of the elite geth unit.

Emile saw the faintest whisper of red on his motion tracker right behind him. He spun to pummel his new enemy with the butt of his rifle but was caught by the strong arms of the geth unit. The machine ripped the rifle from his hands and lunged at the Spartan. Fortunately, while the machine may be stronger than him, it was no where near as fast.

Emile spun to the side withdrawing his kukri, and slashed through the ever present data cable that served as the spine for all geth platforms. The elite geth fell to the ground, dead. _Sonnava bitch, they're upgrading._

Emile turned his attention to the krogan. Trip had mauled one and was about to be shot off by the other two, but Emile put the kibosh on that. He flung his kukri into the eye of the underling krogan, and charged the battlemaster. He leaped over his loyal pet and his newest meal, and landed in front of the battlemaster delivering a right hook to its left eye socket.

The battlemaster's shields broke, but held enough of Emile's punch back to prevent any damage. Unhurt, the battlemaster tackled the overextended Spartan. Emile let out an "OOPH" as the seven hundred pound krogan drove him to the ground. Thanks to his armor, Emile actually outweighed the krogan so it was relatively easy to roll the massive reptile to the side.

Emile being the quicker of the two, was immediately kneeled over the battlemaster, driving his right fist into the hard skull of the krogan, over and over again. After three hard punches, the krogan's skull shattered.

Emile pulled off of the dead alien and called Trip to him. He and the varren quickly moved through the doors and found a wide, water filled, area. The water ran down a slope and passed through a set of turbines in the back, apparently this was where the base drew its power.

He looked towards the open end and saw the Normandy pulling up, the plan was going exactly as predicted.

**Phew, another chapter down. The next chapter will be with Nihlus, Kaidan, and Wrex as they run the distractionary assault. See you next time!**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	15. Nuketown, Virmire

**A new chapter, hooray. I'm really going to have to think about how to bring about the escalation in technology, while at the same time keeping the Covvies out of it. I mean, let's face it; Covenant vs. Reapers, Covenant wins every time. Sometimes it'll be close, but a CSO Assault Carrier's shields can withstand with stand the kinetic force of 50 megatons. I mean don't quote me on that, but I think that's accurate, considering it takes several MAC cannons to actually drop one's shields, and another half dozen shots to actually cripple it if they don't hit something critical. The Reapers just don't have that firepower; just numbers alone won't win a war.**

**Sorry 'bout that, in this chapter Nihlus, Kaidan, and Wrex fight hoards flashlight heads, Emile discovers something shocking, and it ends with a BOOOOOOOOM!**

As soon as Emile had left to infiltrate the base, Nihlus ordered the attack to begin.

They attacked one of the slightly less fortified side of the bases, specifically so the geth would think this _was_ an infiltration attempt. Twelve STG operatives were split into three fireteams, each one led by a non salarian.

Nihlus led the main assault team; his group was consisting of six salarian operatives armed with sub machine guns. This was group was the main killing force, unless you included Wrex who was leading a team of two salarians, one with a sniper rifle, the other with a rocket launcher. His team was designed to take specific targets while Wrex covered them. Kaidan's team was the tech support, dropping the shields of the more powerful enemies and disabling the more powerful weapons systems.

The first sign of the enemy they came across were two machine gun towers at a narrow pass in the rocks. Nihlus and his team drew the fire of the towers while hiding in the front most rocks. Wrex's massive quantity of fire pushed the individual geth attempting to flush out Nihlus and his team out, back into cover. The salarian sniper in Wrex's crew put two bullets in the automated turrets, disabling them.

The teams moved passed the towers through the shin high water that seemed to cover this entire planet. They pressed the advantage of the narrow canyon like passes, where numbers meant little and the skill and experience of the fifteen soldiers proved too much for the assorted troopers, destroyers, and juggernauts to handle.

As they passed into a wider part of the canyon, three primes stood just past the gates, which were about four hundred yards away from the team as they poured out of the narrow canyon.

The one heavy in their group was readying his rocket launcher when a mortar splashed the water and shredded him with shrapnel. The team scrambled for cover as more and more ordnance pounded the ground around them.

Wrex shook his huge scaly head as dirtied water splashed him from a particularly close mortar round, "Get Emile's help! There has to be something he can do! There is no way we can move with their artillery here!"

Kaidan just nodded as he called it in. Moments passed, seconds maybe, but it felt like hours of perpetual thunder raining down on the team, before the mortars started firing deeper into the pass from which the team came.

No longer pressed by the mortars, Wrex picked up the rocket launcher and led the charge up the middle. Pushing inaccurate fire from Dragon's Breath at incredible volumes, Wrex managed to single handedly change the battlefield in their favor. If only for a short while.

Soon enough, drones started flying in, killing off a few of Nihlus' team as they were still scrambling for cover. Kaidan and his four salarian tech experts launched overload mines into the air and detonated them at the flight level of the drones, causing several to simply explode midair, or drop from the sky. Even so it wasn't nearly enough.

"Kaidan, call Emile, tell him, UGH! Tell him to get off his ass and find a way to get rid of these drones!" Nihlus screamed at Kaidan from across the battlefield. Kaidan just nodded as he keyed his omnitool and called it in.

Wrex, meanwhile, was almost by himself holding the line. Leaping from cover to cover, with his biotics and exoskeleton making it easier, his gun thundered as it tore the kinetic barriers off of geth and subsequently ripped them to shreds, and rockets flew from his position and smashed charging juggernauts to pieces.

Realizing that the problem was the massive krogan crushing their ground troops, the aerial drones began to focus on him, driving Wrex to cover. "Damn it, what is Emile doing out there?!"

Kaidan shrugged, hoping the commander was at least alright. Then there was a muffled boom off in the distance and the next wave of drones never came. Kaidan sent his thanks to Emile over the comms and told Garrus and Ashley to get the dropship into position.

In the distance they saw a black dot begin to circle the base over head. Soon enough, white streaks and muffled cracks that could barely be heard even in the occasional lull in the fighting, signaled that Garrus was getting to work.

Wrex unloaded the rest of the rockets into the three primes standing at the front. Thirteen rockets fanned out, four to the ones on the outside and five to the middle prime, and created an opaque barrier of light and smoke.

Before the dust could clear, Wrex and Kaidan, who had the most experience with the geth, were already firing nonstop into the smoke. Finally the dust cleared to reveal a sorely damaged prime in the middle, and two pristine primes standing as though the wind was the only thing striking them.

The massive machines charged, but before they could get very far, the damaged prime in the middle fell from a sniper round punching through the flashlight optics of the giant machine.

Wrex and Kaidan pummeled the prime on the left with constant lifts and throws, barely affecting the multi ton machine. Nihlus ordered every salarian to concentrate on that prime, trying to take out one before they get close enough to be a problem.

The barriers on the huge machine finally dropped, but the armor was still strong and deflecting every round fired at it. The only guns that managed to punch through the armor of the massive machine belonged to Wrex and the salarian sniper, "Aim for the head you idiots! If it can't see, it can't do shit!"

Wrex's… helpful advice finally brought down the geth. They turned to the other prime, and found a very frightening sight.

The towering geth was right on top of them, and stomping on the small salarians. Wrex charged the geth, sliding Dragon's Breath on his back and igniting his plasma shield.

He ducked under one swipe from the prime, and brought the shield up and swung it around, slicing the leg off at the knee. Once the machine splashed into the water, Wrex leaped on its back, grabbing Dragon's Breath and pointing it straight down. Under the onslaught of automatic fire from the massive gun, the prime's eye finally winked out.

"Let's go." Wrex huffed as he hopped off the machine. He splashed down and led the charge up the beach head, firing his massive gun as he did so. The now diminished force soon pushed past the hastily organized defense outside the base, and pushed their way in.

Emile ran up to the Normandy as the cargo bay doors opened, and picked up the improvise nuke that was being carried by three marines. He set it down in the low part of the waterway they had chosen as the landing zone.

"Li, Q-ball, this thing ready to go?" Emile shouted over the sound of rushing water and whining turbines.

"Should be, I'll have to run a diagnostic but the remote detonation is all set." Tali answered, having to shout a little as well.

Emile turned off his external speakers, in order have a little bit of clarity, as he called Kaidan over the comms, "Elvis, where you guys at?"

His only answer was garbled voices and gunfire until Garrus gave Emile an update, "Their taking heavy fire from those new geth platforms you encountered and what looks like crude plasma fire, lots of it."

"Claws, start taking down non friendly's, Cheeks begin a descent pattern to pick up the assault team," he turned to the two by the bomb, "Jenkins and the marines will cover you two, get the bomb working and get out on the Normandy. I'm on my way to take care of the geth pounding the assault team."

Orders given, Emile didn't even bother taking the door, quickly scrambling up the wall thanks to a couple of arches sticking out of the cement.

As he dashed along the top of the wall, headed for the assault team, he saw a geth dropship headed towards the bomb sight, "Li, Q-ball, you're gonna have -… never mind." He said as a bright blue bolt shot out from the Normandy's position, and nearly vaporized the craft. _Good thing those things don't have shields yet._

He continued his run and soon found where the team was. All but three of the salarians were dead, Nihlus was clutching his left arm, and Wrex and Kaidan were cut off from the rest of the group. Three plasma turrets, much more crude and inefficient than the ones used by the Covenant, had Nihlus and the salarians pinned, while twelve of those elite platforms Emile had encountered were closing in on Wrex and Kaidan.

Emile leaped off the wall and crushed a geth trooper using the left most plasma turret. He then brought his now un-silenced Mattock to bear, blasting the flashlight optics of the other two turret using geth, killing them quickly. This allowed Nihlus and the salarians to begin to fire back at the shock troopers surrounding them.

Emile focused on the twelve elite platforms, and noticed there were only ten in his field of vision. He couldn't see any bodies, _fuckers are cloaked_.

Spraying the plasma turret wildly down upon the geth, he struck two previously invisible geth and killed them one shot each. _They must not be able to hold shields, and cloak at the same time._ It made sense, and relieved Emile. The Covenant had no problem holding both, neither did his armor. This meant that this was an early attempt at reverse engineering of what he could assume was Covenant tech. This in turn meant that the Covvies did not give them this technology; it was taken from dead ones. _Dead Covvies are alright, as long as they ain't here in force._

Emile continued to rain plasma down on the heavily shielded geth, finding them much tougher than the invisible ones.

When Wrex looked out and saw that one of the turrets had turned on the strange geth, he was relieved. These new geth were wielding powerful plasma shotguns that bypassed kinetic barriers. The titanium plating of his exoskeleton already showed a few scorch marks.

Wrex kept watching and waiting for a moment to make his move. One soon came as the geth seemingly forgot about him and Kaidan, and took cover opposite the turret. One in particular took cover behind a close container facing the duo.

Wrex charged as Kaidan did his part. Soon after they encountered the new geth with strange white kinetic barriers, Kaidan soon found out that these shields were more susceptible to overloads. It seemed no matter how strong the shield, a good electromagnetic pulse could knock them out for a good few seconds.

So as the overload stripped the geth of its shields, Wrex closed in and pushed his fist through the platform's head.

As soon as Wrex made sure it was dead, he set up Dragon's Breath on the short crate the geth had hidden behind, and opened fire.

Pinned between to powerful sources of fire, and finding their shields stripped by EMP's, the twelve platforms soon became nothing more than twisted metal.

Emile dropped down from the turret mount he had been on, to join the six soldiers he had just saved. "Everyone who is still alive, okay?"

Nihlus held up a charred stump where his left hand used to be, "Caught an unlucky hit as I was diving for cover, most of the team, were not as fortunate."

Behind him lay the five charred corpses of the salarians fortunate enough to get past the gate, only to be struck down by weapons they had only dreamed about.

Emile looked into the sky and saw the black dot of the dropship with Garrus and Ashley in it getting bigger, and just in time to see the Normandy lift off, "Li, any casualties? Any problems with the bomb?"

"Negative Commander, all went as planned, any more orders?"

"Just tell Joker to cover us as we pull the hell out of here, and upload the remote detonation commands to my armor."

"… done." Liara said over the comms.

"Good work Li, A239, out." Emile replied, using his Spartan identification tag instead of his name.

He turned his head to the sky and saw that the dropship was about ten minutes away, "Alright find cover! We got ten minutes to extraction."

As he barked orders to the team, he heard a high pitched whine. He quickly looked around for the source and found it.

Saren was inbound on some sort of board. Emile shoved an unfortunate salarian soldier out of the way as a biotic warp exploded against the concrete.

"Cover!" Emile shouted as he turned to Saren. The former spectre kept his altitude, raining biotic warps and throws down on the team, as an inconspicuous glow built underneath his board.

Emile saw it and felt a chill, _energy projector!_ He wasted no time in bursting from cover and jumping on top of a rather large container. Saren turned his head and saw the Spartan making his move, and made an attempt to back off from the angry skull clad warrior.

It wasn't enough.

Emile 'clanked' onto the board, just in front of Saren and delivered a right hand back hand.

Saren, who was enhanced far beyond that of a normal turian thanks to Sovereign, only just managed to duck… and receive the huge human's knee to his face.

Saren reeled back to the edge of the board, where Emile pushed his left fist into the turian's chest, throwing him from the board.

Emile leaped down to finish his work, thinking an easy victory at hand, when a biotically enhanced fist smashed into his chest, tossing him ten feet back.

Emile rose, pointing his shotgun and grenade launcher at Saren, just as Saren readied his enhanced biotics to pummel the armored human. They stared at one another, at a standstill. At ten feet, Emile's shotgun would most likely take down Saren's barriers and the grenade launcher would finish the injured turian off, while Saren could only toss the Spartan back another thirty feet. Calling it a standstill was only because Emile was unaware of the true power of Saren's biotics.

"Impressive human, this assault force made it quite far against a superior force." Saren said, "but it was not enough, and to be honest it was quite foolish of you to try and assault the base when an infiltration team would have been more prudent."

Emile smirked under his helmet, the fool didn't know.

"Of course, you at least had your pathetic ship fly in a nuke; did you honestly think that would escape my attention?" Emile's smirk faded.

"Yeah, thought you weren't smart enough to notice a huge ship flying around, then again, I thought you didn't have plasma tech. Care to explain?"

Saren brought the turian equivalent of a smirk to his face, "Of course, Noble Four."

"Don't you fuckin' call me that bird boy."

"You see I was impressed with the technology of your universe, mostly the directed energy weapons, and impressive personal shields." Saren began, obviously beginning a monologue, "So when a huge chunk of purple metal appeared above an unnoticed garden world, I was the first on the scene."

A cold chill ran down Emile's spine, _Jorge_, "There was also a much smaller ship underneath this ship, it contained a survivor."

"He wore similar armor to you, though he was much bigger, and to my luck, was unconscious. So I had him brought aboard Sovereign. I now have a most loyal Spartan to my own cause."

"You sonnava bitch! Where is he?!" Emile had finally had enough of being silent.

"You know, I think I'll tell you. He's on Noveria with my lieutenant, Benezia. I can't wait to see him rend you piece from piece." Saren proclaimed smugly, or at least, he was about to bring a smug look to his face, but found that hard to do as a fist smashed into the left side of his face.

Emile's punch had been so hard that it had literally broken a mandible off. Saren was spinning in the air, thrown by Emile's fist, and crashed into the cement wall behind him.

The turian moved to use his biotics, but was stopped by a foot cracking every rib he had as it punted him ten feet into the air.

The only thing keeping the former spectre from dying was the cybernetic enhancements throughout his body. It also allowed him to keep his consciousness long enough to grab onto his still hovering board.

The former spectre hauled his broken body onto it and sped off before Emile could continue his rage induced beat down.

"GET BACK HERE PUSSY! COME BACK SO I CAN RIP MORE OFF YOUR UGLY, TRAITOROUS, SISSY, CONNIVING, MANIPULATIVE ASS!" Emile roared at the retreating board.

"Commander! Come on we have to get out of here!" Kaidan was yelling as the evac shuttle touched down in the open courtyard. Emile reluctantly made his way to the shuttle.

As the dropship sped away from the base, Emile brought up the detonation commands on his visor.

"Fire in the hole," he whispered as the shuttle was breaking the upper atmosphere.

The roar was audible even in the thin atmosphere, it made any conversation in the shuttle impossible for a little while longer, until it broke through the atmosphere.

The dropship turned to the Normandy and headed home.

**Sorry that took so long, family stuff, Christmas stuff, Vikings dominating the Texans. They all took away from my writing time, as will deer hunting in the near future, and vacation in the slightly more distant future.**

**A couple of concerns regarding some comments. To 'Guest' who was telling me about the wait of a Spartan's armor and Emile's weight. It is a Spartan Two's armor that weighs half a ton, a Spartan Three has far less armor considering their expendability and size. Also, Emile's muscles and bones are twice as dense as normal humans, if not more. This would make a 6'7" Spartan Three weigh about 350, if not more. I know that has no real bearing on the story, but I felt it should be addressed.**

**Finally, Jorge is back! but he's the enemy? GASP! Don't worry, both his and Benezia's life will be spared, but Emile will take quite a beating from Jorge. Let me know what you think about that development.**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read. **


	16. Story Time

**Me again, you guys must be sick of me. Anyway to explain some things that went unexplained in the last chapter, mostly the plasma tech that Saren got. Saren's plasma tech will not be as good as the Covenant, because they stole shield generators from the actual Covvie super carrier, and corvette, some of the plasma shields will be of similar strength, but not all. Not in this chapter, but the next few, you will actually begin to see normal geth with plasma shields but shields that are only about as strong as an elite minor's on heroic, so still one shots for Emile's shotgun and Garrus' sniper rifle. Phew.**

**This is a filler chapter in which Emile explains to the team the situation about Jorge, trains with Wrex to get ready to fight Jorge, and has team bonding moments with Wrex and Liara while Garrus and Ashley have awkward conversations. ;)**

"Ilos." Emile said to kick off the debriefing, "The beacon in Saren's little office thing said something about Ilos. Whatever Ilos is, is related to the Conduit."

Liara quickly got over her shock at the mention of Ilos and said, "Ilos is a planet, covered in prothean ruins. My guess is that Ilos is where the Conduit is."

Emile nodded his head, "Is the slipspace drive good to go?"

Tali hesitated, but nodded, "It's working just like it was when I first got on this ship, though I can't be sure if that is a good thing or not, to be honest I am really having a hard time understanding that, and speaking modestly, I'm the best damn engineer in light-years."

Emile nodded, he knew that slipspace was tricky, but if that thing was up to specs, then they would use it to get to Ilos faster than what Saren could, but first things first.

"Check it, we need to be ready, our next stop is Noveria, both Liara's mother, Benezia, and a former teammate of mine, are there, under Saren's control." Liara looked distraught for a few moments at the thought of facing her mother, but Kaidan was more interested in the other teammate.

"Saren said he had a completely loyal Spartan thanks to some… giant purple ship. What did he mean?" Emile sighed at Kaidan's question.

"Jorge, he's got Jorge. The really big guy from the recording I showed you."

Wrex frowned at the possibility, "So Saren has another you under his command?"

Emile turned his skulled visor to regard the krogan, "No. Saren has a bigger, faster, smarter, stronger, tougher me under his command. Think back to all those times I did something physically impossible for a normal human, and then imagine that those things would have been easy if I was like Jorge."

The team paled as they began to realize just what awaited them on Noveria.

"Dismissed, T-Wrex could you meet me down in the cargo bay? Don't take the armor off." The team left and Emile headed to the armory to take his MJOLNIR off. Ashley and Garrus also went in to the armory as they usually do after a mission.

They watched as Emile left the armory in just his skin tight under suit, "You know, he's big in his armor, but when he's out of it, he's just as big." Garrus pointed out as he disassembled his sniper rifle.

"Yeah, and there's supposed to be a guy bigger than him?" Ashley asked with incredulity as she was cleaning out some of the mud off of Wrex's machine gun. Emile had to duck past some of the doorways in the Normandy so it was rather hard to believe that there could be humans bigger than the massive dark skinned man who had just left the room.

"Imagine how tall turian super soldiers would be." Garrus said as he slid the barrel out of his sniper rifle and began wiping it with an oily rag.

Ashley had a dreamy look on her face, "Quite the reach…" she mumbled.

"What was that Ash?" Garrus said as he looked up from his gun. Ashley turned a bright red as she just realized what she was daydreaming about.

"Uh-uh, nothing. Don't worry about it." She stuttered, trying to reign in her thoughts.

"Right, nothing, I'm sure." Garrus said back to her, eyes lighting up in amusement.

Emile stepped off the elevator and walked into the cargo bay. He found Wrex leaning up against a wall, his exoskeleton making him look bulkier than normal, which is an impressive feet for a krogan.

"Alright T-Wrex, you and I are gonna spar." Emile said as he moved towards the mats.

"Shouldn't I take my armor off?" Wrex asked, he had Emile at a serious disadvantage considering the extra weight and strength the armor provided.

"No, I need to prepare against a physically superior opponent. I.e., you." Emile remarked as he crouched down into martial arts stance. Wrex just shrugged and charged the large human…

"Lacerations up and down your body, bruises all over chest and abdominals, not to mention any concussive damage that could have been done to your brain, perhaps next time you could get some friends to help you Mr. Wrex, because Emile pummeled you up and down the cargo bay. Honestly, what were you two doing down there?" Chakwas asked, after properly admonishing Wrex on his foolish behavior of fighting the commander alone.

"He asked me to spar with him. He said he needed help training to fight a physically superior opponent." Wrex responded, speaking through bloody lips. Emile really had done a number on him. As strong as Wrex was in his armor, he could never hope to be as fast as a Spartan fighting at full speed. There were cuts from particularly hard strikes where the human's fists found weaknesses in his armor, and bruises where his fists simply cracked the ceramic plating underneath the exoskeleton.

"Well I'd say he has enough practice, and he certainly doesn't need to use our crew to work off his frustrations." Chakwas continued to grumble as Wrex waddled out of the med bay and up to the armory.

He entered to Garrus and Ashley sitting closely. Actually, they were sitting very closely, "Am I interrupting something?"

That did it. The two looked to Wrex, and then each other, and finally Garrus bolted out of the door as Ashley quickly got to work on Tali's shotgun, which was sparkling clean and already disassembled.

Wrex chuckled as his exoskeleton was stripped off by the special machine in the back of the armory. As he chuckled, Ashley was getting redder and redder until she finally put the shotgun back in the locker and left the room.

"You'll find the turian in the main gun battery!" Wrex called out, and laughed as Ashley started running away, _humans, they're hilarious._

Ashley literally ran into Emile as he was getting off the elevator at the CIC, "Cheeks, what's up?"

"Uh, nothing Commander, I, uh, I'm going to check in on something… in the main gun battery! Yeah, the main gun battery." Emile just cocked his eyebrow at the female marine, _why's she goin to see Claws?_

"Okay Cheeks, whatever you say." Emile dismissed her, shaking his head he walked into the armory, "What's up T-Wrex?"

"You got me pretty good sparring; I had to deal with an angry Chakwas. That human could give a pissed off thresher maw a run for its money." Wrex replied, "Hm, it's a testament to how bad you beat me actually, krogans don't really trust doctors."

Emile nodded slowly, "Yeah, speaking of the genophage, I couldn't find the cure, I know it has been eatin' ya since we got back. But I did find a significant amount of data to start working for a cure."

Wrex looked out the window, "Yeah well, no one cares about the krogan enough to work the rest of the way on that. As for the krogan ourselves? I've given up on us a long time ago."

"Why's that?" Wrex turned to regard the human, "Why's what? Why will no one work for a cure for the krogan? Why don't we do it ourselves? Why have I given up on our people?"

"I know the answers to the first two, but give up on your people? Where I come from, humanities on the brink, and no one gives up, why are the krogan giving up?"

"Because you had something to attack, something to defend against, in this case the weapons already been deployed, and we're not strong enough to fight it off. It's a disease, and we don't have krogan doctors, or scientists, we're warriors. So instead of working toward the unification of krogan, we leave our home system and sell ourselves as mercenaries." Wrex was getting distraught over the apparent fall of his people, the last hope they had was the cure of the genophage, but even that was denied them.

Emile decided to take his mind off of it, "Got any stories T-Wrex?"

Wrex turned to regard the human. Normally this would be the point where he would tell the human off, he didn't have to share his life story. Then again, this human had already given his life story.

"Alright, only if we trade though."

Over the next few hours, deep into the night, Emile and Wrex traded stories of battles they had fought in. Emile told stories from training, about how his training squad had set up ambushes on the trainers, and actually stole some of the guard dogs from them. Wrex told Emile about how he came to give up on the krogan.

"So you actually were political rivals with your own father?" Emile asked with incredulity. His own memories of his father weren't pleasant, but knew that that word had meaning to other people.

"Well he was standing in the way of a future beyond infighting between clans, and unity for the krogan. He eventually invited me to a conference in one of our sacred burial grounds. There's supposed to be absolutely no violence there, but when I showed up, I was ambushed. Krogan jumping out of graves like ancient krogan come back to life! Well that's where I got these nasty scars over my eyes, but before I had to flee, I plunged my dagger deep into my father's chest."

"Damn dude. Well I got a story for you. It was when I first got my SPI armor. Uh that's Semi Powered Infiltration armor. It definitely didn't have the same protective means as my MJOLNIR, but it did have active camouflage."

"I was probably only… eight months out of augmentations, this was my second mission into Covvie space. Our objective was to blow a Covvie supply post orbiting a glassed colony."

"The guy leading it would eventually join me on Noble Team. Actually this is where Thom 292 would get the nickname 'Flawless Cowboy'"

"We were on this prowler, I forget the name, and our first objective was to get to the station. There was no way the prowler could get in undetected, so we actually had to hijack Covvie ship."

"There was this SDV heavy class corvette that was making an approach. Those things aren't really set up with much. I think they have some port and starboard plasma batteries, a small-ish energy projector on the bottom, and some have forward facing plasma torpedo launchers. But the important thing was their weak sensors. That let the prowler get right on top of it."

"We dropped down from the prowler and landed on the top of this things hull. We waited until the prowler was gone, then we dropped into the communications room just below this airlock."

"We secured the room pretty quickly and without raising any alarms. We hid the bodies and hid ourselves with the active camo and waited for the corvette to dock."

"Soon after the ship docked we stealthily made our way inside the station. Heh, right as we're about to enter the reactor room, my camo unit fails."

"Oh my god you should have seen it. The two elite minors guarding the reactor room door just stared at me. They really didn't know what to do. I mean, a human, just appearing out of thin air?"

"Finally one of them managed to collect his wits after a few seconds and raised the alarm. Thom ordered camo off for everyone. This was no longer a stealth mission."

"By the time we had that reactor rigged to blow and the countdown set, my armor was covered in the rainbow blood of grunts and the blue blood of elites. Then I look over at Thom, pristine. Not a damned drop of blood on the guy, nor any scorch marks from any hits, hell the damn armor even shined like it had just been washed. Dude's firing two magnums from the hip like some old western movie."

"At that point we had lost two of the five man team sent in. It was just me, Thom, and our tech specialist, he didn't last much longer after he sabotaged the engines. Stray plasma bolt caught him in the neck, burned right through and got his head rolling. I can still see it."

"We had five minutes to get off the station, so we headed to the docks, thinking 'hey let's just grab a phantom or seraph and get out'. Well we couldn't make it there and we ended up hijacking a CCS battlecruiser."

"It wasn't that hard, even though the ship itself is just over a mile long, it was a relatively short jaunt to the bridge. Pretty much every soldier that was supposed to be on the ship was on the station looking for us."

"When we cleared the bridge, I must of hit the wrong button or somethin, cause the bridges defenses went up. It sealed us in with control of the whole damn ship."

"We vented every compartment and got the hell out. Or we tried to. We couldn't read the glyphs on the control screens and we didn't have our techie or an AI to help us out. There was one thing we could understand, they had an assault plan on a colony that had yet to be attacked."

"Since they already knew where it was, we went ahead and got the ship goin there. The prowler that brought us there wasn't expecting us to come back so there was never a rendezvous point."

"Oh man, I can only imagine the faces on the commanders at that colony, musta been terrified. The only problem with this escape plan was the Covenant was hot on our tail. Fortunately they had yet to build their fleet up for a proper assault. We probably bought that colony another week."

"Anyway, we had to bail on the hijacked ship as the Covvies were pounding it hard. After all that, the fucker who led the whole mission still looks pristine! That's when I came up with the name 'Flawless Cowboy.'"

"I expected to be reprimanded by the UNSC, probably court martialed, but thanks to the circumstances, all we got was a slap on the wrist for leading the Covvies to that colony. I mean, they already knew where it was the only thing keeping them from attacking was the lack of a CSO Assault Carrier."

"A few missions later, I finally met Thom again when we were assigned to Noble Team, it was also the same day I met Jorge."

Wrex soaked in the story, it probably knocked just about any story he had out of the park, and this human was only fifteen when it happened! This human was a shining example of exactly what every krogan wants to be.

"Well, good talkin' to ya T-Wrex, see you tomorrow, I gotta make sure Trip hasn't shit on my carpet upstairs." Emile remarked as he got up and left, it was about 1 a.m.

Sure enough, Emile got up to his room and there was a big steaming pile of varren crap, but this time it was in plastic tub Emile had set up just for Trip, "Aw man, that fuckin reeks! But uh, good job Trip, you're a good boy."

After tossing the varren feces into the waste disposal chute, and turning the air purifier on, Emile finally got to bed… with a giant, reptilian dog breathing on his face.

Emile woke up to the same scene as when he fell asleep, "Damn it dog! Get off of me!"

Trip hopped of the bed and started whining and scratching at the door, "Yeah, yeah, we'll go get breakfast, just let me get showered first."

The duo finally reached the mess hall at the usual 5:25 a.m. to find Liara already there.

"Uh, Li? You okay?" Emile asked, a little cautiously, the last time he had found a teammate like this, he found out his team was sneaking behind his back and lying.

"Hm? Oh yes I am well Commander, I am just thinking." She replied.

"Your mother?" Emile asked, knowing that that was exactly what was bothering her. He rummaged around the food stores looking for a steak to toss to Trip as she answered.

"Yes, it is just that, my mother and I never got along very well. Even if she wasn't obviously indoctrinated by Saren… I have to wonder, would she still even want to see me? This may be the last time I see her alive." She admitted to the Spartan.

Emile dropped the chunk of beef on the floor as he moved over to the table. He sat down across from her and the two could hear the varren chewing on his meal.

"You know, I always act like me and the rest of Noble Team was just a big happy family, but I didn't always get along with them either. In fact, Jorge at times hated me. I was arrogant, gaudy, and an overall asshole. And don't remind me that I am still that way, I know, but for the most part this team has become a really weird family. I bet your mom still cares about you, if she wasn't being mind controlled. Just cause you don't always get along will never change the fact you're still family."

Liara considered what the massive human had said. For a man who acts more like a psychotic child, he did have his moments of philosophical brilliance.

"So you and Elvis been keepin' it in your pants?" Only a few moments of brilliance.

**Yay another chapter done! Next chapter will be Noveria, but not Jorge, not yet. I hope this chapter went over well, it actually means quite a bit to me to read your reviews and hear how you like my story. It makes me want to keep writing it.**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	17. The Dangerous World of Business

**Noveria is here, hooray! I didn't really see any questions that needed answering in the reviews, then again it seems like the reviews are few and far between. I think there were some mistakes in the last chapter, mostly in the classifications of one of the Covenant ships I mentioned, the assault carrier I think, and the weapons of the corvette. But no one called me out on those.**

**Anyway, in this chapter Emile scares the shit out of glorified mall cops, intimidates corrupt business men, once again drives a mako, much to the dismay of his teammates, and stomps on once extinct insects.**

"I'm sorry Trip, you can't come along. They got a strict 'no varren' rule here on Noveria." Emile said the whining varren. Trip had been whining ever since the team got ready to go, as though he sensed they weren't taking him along.

"Like you've ever obeyed a rule in your life, Emile."

"Shut up Elvis. It's more that I'm afraid he's just gonna rip off some business mans face. He does have a good sense of character." Emile replied. The varren did seem to have a keen sense about who was an enemy and who wasn't, and in the corrupt business world of Noveria, well; Emile just wasn't willing to risk it. But he sure as hell wasn't going to follow the rules that got in his way here.

"Hey Commander, we're just about there, I just got off the horn with a giant asshole. I had to tell them we had a Council spectre onboard to even land." Joker said over his shoulder as he looked back at the seven man team all decked out in their combat gear. It was an intimidating sight, and what made it worse was the fact Ashley, Garrus, and Kaidan had actually painted big white skulls across their chest plates, making them look like a hardcore merc gang.

"Why did you guys do that?" Emile asked as he looked at the three. Garrus was the first to respond.

"Ashley and Kaidan stole my armor to paint the skull on, it wasn't my choice. Though I do have to admit, it really does class up the place." The rest of the team who was without the skulls took a long look at the armor.

"Hm, I think I might get that painted on my armor. Looks cool." Wrex commented, and to Emile's hidden surprise, both Tali and Liara nodded. _I've ruined those poor innocent girls, damn their parents are gonna be pissed at me._

Soon enough there was a slight shudder that signified the Normandy pulling into dock, "Good luck with the assholes!"

"Shut up Joker, your voice grates against my ears!" Emile shouted back at the flyboy.

"Aw, we all know you love me. I'll take care of Trip while you're gone." Joker called back as they exited the airlock.

_He better, fuckin flyboy._ The team walked around the Normandy and made their way over to the glass doors that led into Port Hanshan, but were stopped by a security team.

"Halt, to continue you're going to have to hand over your weapons." The lead cop said, or tried to say as the Spartan and his team just kept on going.

Emile was about to walk through the glass doors when a small blonde woman tried to stop him. He simply picked her up with one hand by the scruff of her neck and set her aside, "Stand aside rent-a-cops, I'm a spectre."

The turian and the blonde looked ready to fire their weapons when Wrex fixed them with a stare. The krogans blood red eyes stopped them from doing anything foolish, or maybe it was the meter long gun and the hyper advanced armor he had on his person.

The captain wasn't so easily intimidated, or so she thought. As she grabbed the arm of the huge armored human, he turned and looked down at her. She could clearly see her own, very frightened, eyes staring back at her from the eye holes of the skull.

"G-go ahead, sir, Parasini-san will see you up at the checkpoint." She managed to stammer as the massive human moved out of her grasp and moved up the stairs.

Ashley noticed the blonde looking at Garrus, there was something in her eyes Ashley didn't like, at all.

Of course Garrus noticed too, and he noticed Ashley glaring at the security officer. _What's that about?_ He thought.

"Thank you," Emile muttered as he reached the top of the stairs, two sensors started scanning him, then blared an alarm when they detected his weapons. Emile regarded the sensors, then shot an overload into them, "Shut up."

"That was unnecessary Commander, I was just about to shut them off." Said a woman wearing a very tight red dress, if Emile had to guess, she would have been attractive, but then Emile had a platinum implant in his thyroid that prevented any such thoughts, most of the time.

"And who might you be sweetheart?" Emile casually asked as he leaned against the far wall. He had a pretty good idea who she was, but the move was more or less to bring his omnitool screen up on his visor and start using Dot's invasive virus to gather as much data on the database's here as he could.

"My name is Gianna Parasini, I'm Administrator Anoleis' secretary," _that ain't all you are, internal affairs investigator, eh?_ "I have confirmed your identity as a spectre, Commander."

"Well Miss Parasini, you see anything strange round here? I've been told Saren's flunky, Benezia's been here, any idea where she might be?" Emile asked in his usual blunt fashion. _Fuck secretive business practices, all that cloak and dagger that a five year old can see through is just a waste of my time._

Parasini's eyes seemed to widen a little at the Spartan's lack of subtlety. "Yes, as a matter of fact she was here. She came through with a small team of asari commandoes and one very big human. In just standard civilian clothes, this human was as big as you are in your armor."

_Jorge, why didn't he have his armor on? Why would Saren have made him abandon it?_

"She also brought several large crates through customs." _Must of hid his armor in one of those crates, probably with geth in em too._ Emile motioned for her to continue.

"They should still be up at Peak 15, though you'll need a garage pass if you want to follow." _Damn._

"Where can I get one?" Emile asked as he finally moved away from the wall. He already had several ideas on what to do to actually get one. He could intimidate Anoleis, he could scare some other poor business person, or he could check out this Lorek Qui'in guy.

"You'll have to speak with Administrator Anoleis, though due to your spectre status, I doubt he'd give you anything." Emile nodded and walked down the hallway and stopped short of the hallway to work out a plan with his team.

"Cheeks, Claws, I want you two to check out a guy named Lorek Quinn. According to the database he's been having some trouble with Anoleis shutting down his office, he probably has evidence to prove that the administrator is corrupt. Make a deal with him, see if you can't get his garage pass."

"Li, Elvis, I want you two to collect information on what exactly might have been in those crates, talk to guards, talk to business men, I don't care, just get it done."

"T-Wrex, Q-ball, you with me." Emile finished as they all piled in the elevator, "We got an administrator to talk to."

The elevator reached the top of its path and the team piled out. Ashley and Garrus headed to the end of the room, looking for an elevator to lead them to the bar, Lorek Quinn's last known position. Kaidan and Liara went off in search of someone who knew more about those crates Benezia brought in. Finally, Emile, Wrex, and Tali walked down a short flight of stairs to look for Anoleis.

The trio entered the office to find a Gianna Parasini already sitting at her desk, "Damn girl, you sure got here fast."

Parasini looked up with a forced smile, "Trade secret sir, I'm afraid I can't disclose any details to you. Anoleis should be in his office, I'll let him know you're on your way in."

Emile nodded to the woman and walked around the odd serrated concrete that the walls were made of here, and found a glass door leading to Anoleis' office, _everything here is cold, ice like, just like the fuckin weather._

The Spartan didn't bother knocking, or ringing the buzzer, he just burst in, much to the administrators dismay, "Rude, aren't you. Now just what do you think gives you the right to, WAH!"

The salarian was cut off as a twelve inch kukri buried itself three inches deep in the solid steel desk. The knife had only missed his hands by mere centimeters, "Aw, shame, I was really hopin' that'd just cut your cheatin' hands off."

Emile slowly walked around the desk, he stopped right behind a frozen Anoleis, "Do you know why we're here, Mr. Anoleis?" Emile yanked the knife out of the desk, his hand jerked a little bit as the knife came out and he 'accidentally' cut a line in Anoleis' cheek.

"Oh dear, look at that, didn't mean for that to happen did we?" Emile said with feigned concern. Anoleis visibly shook for a moment before he managed to collect himself enough to apply medigel to the tiny cut, causing it to disappear immediately.

"Shame you had to do that, salarian. The smell of your blood was making me hungry." Wrex growled. Anoleis barely kept himself from shaking as he tried to stand up. Emile immediately shoved him back down in the seat.

"Sit. Down. I'll ask again, do you know why we are here?" Emile asked with fake politeness. Tali had gone relatively unnoticed as she sat in the corner of the room, typing away on her omnitool, no doubt hacking into Anoleis' files with ease.

"If you want a garage pass then that is just too bad, spectre. Your authority means little here." Wrex shook his head at the stupid salarian, authority didn't really matter to Emile, he got what he wanted, when he wanted.

Emile chuckled darkly, and once again the corrupt salarian had to keep a firm grip on his desk to keep from openly shaking. Emile was about to launch into another series of very scary threatening tactics, but Tali had found something.

The quarian opened a private channel to Emile and Wrex, "I found evidence of his corrupt practices. Nothing solid, but Garrus and Ashley are on the right track to get it. It looks like Lorek Quinn and Parasini are collaborating to bring Anoleis to trial for his crimes."

Emile looked to Wrex, and then to Tali, they nodded at each other. They would wait for Ashley and Garrus to come up with Lorek Qui'in's evidence.

"I'll see you around, Mr. Anoleis." Emile whispered into the salarian's ear. They left the room, leaving a nearly crying administrator behind them.

"You know, I wish you just would have pressed the frog a little longer, he woulda broke." Wrex grumbled as they walked pass Gianna's curiously empty desk.

"S'all right T-Wrex, I'm sure we'll see the whiny salarian get what's comin to him. Besides, I want to see how well Claws and Cheeks work together." Emile explained, he knew the little frog man was going to break, but he had split the team on purpose, he wanted to find out how well they worked together without him constantly over their shoulder.

After they had initially split up, Ashley and Garrus had made a beeline to Lorek Qui'in's last known location, the bar. When they got to the top of the next elevator, they found an older turian in a fine business suit hunched over an untouched turian whiskey.

"That's got to be him." Ashley whispered to Garrus. Garrus just nodded as the older turian took notice of them, he quickly waved the two over to him.

"Ah, hello, what can I do for you?" the turian asked, knowing exactly what they want.

"Are you Lorek Qui'in?" Ashley immediately asked. Qui'in gave Ashley a turian equivalent to a smile.

"You are with the new spectre that just came into port yes? What can an old turian do for you?" Garrus quickly held up a hand, stopping Ashley from immediately spewing forth what they needed, this situation required subtlety.

After a long drawn out conversation, they eventually learned how to get a garage pass from the old turian businessman. They needed to sneak into Synthetic Insights and steal Qui'in's evidence of Anoleis' corruption. The only problem was going to be the security team in the way.

Fortunately, Garrus always came prepared as he readied his own Vindicator battle rifle and slid a silencer over the barrel. He handed Ashley one too and soon they were ready to exterminate some glorified mall cops.

"You know, I could have gotten the same thing out of the guy in much less time." Ashley grumbled as they stepped into the elevator.

Garrus hit the control switch as he replied, "Yeah, or you could have scared the guy off of us. He wanted to play coy, so I played along, besides, it doesn't matter now."

"But you don't think I could have handled it, do you?" Ashley shot at him.

"Ash, you are a great many things, but sly and cunning are not two things I believe I will ever associate with you." Garrus replied as the elevator doors slid open, revealing two guards with their backs to them.

A quick nod between the two, and Ashley and Garrus put bullet holes in both of the guards' heads. Ashley dragged the bodies behind one of the many pointless walls that were set around the office, while Garrus checked ahead for anymore of the corrupt cops.

He saw two turians and three humans, some were sitting on the benches, and others were actively patrolling the area. He signaled for Ashley to go around the other end of the concrete wall and wait for his count.

"One… Two… Three… Fire!" Garrus whispered into the comm. link, as he did so, he raised his Vindicator and fired two bursts in the turian sitting down, he then shifted his fire to the two humans that had been standing in the corner.

Neither one noticed their turian colleague get his head shot off, nor did neither notice the turian in dark red armor crouched down pointing a rifle at them. Three bursts from his battle rifle put the humans down, _sorry about the carpet Qui'in._

Garrus turned his attention over to Ashley to find that she had already taken care of her two enemies. She was crouched down at the bottom of the staircase leading to the level with Lorek Qui'in's office on it.

Garrus caught up to her and the duo slowly made their way up the stairs. At the top they noticed the blonde security officer from the front.

"I'll take the blonde bitch," Ashley whispered to Garrus, "you take the turians." Garrus cocked a brow plate at the female human, _why's she so mad with the blonde security officer?_

He didn't have time to ponder it any further as Ashley snuck up on the blonde. As soon as she was right behind the cop, Garrus fired a burst from his battle rifle into each turian's head, killing them instantly. Ashley just smacked the butt of her rifle as hard as she could into the female security officer's head.

The smaller human girl crumpled to the ground, and Ashley stood over her seething.

"Why are you so mad at her? I thought she was quite nice." Garrus casually commented, he didn't actually think so, but the way she was eyeing him was boost to his ego.

Ashley shot Garrus a look that immediately made him shut up. He led the way into the office and quickly located the OSD on the computer.

"Okay, I got the data, now let's go… Ashley, what are you doing?" Garrus asked, she had locked the door, and was approaching him.

Kaidan and Liara had tried talking to the guards on duty, and got nowhere with them. Most of them refused to even acknowledge the duo's presence, the guards that did only told them off.

Finally they managed to get a guard to point them to a hanar that oversees everything that goes through customs. A lengthy chat full of proprieties later, and Kaidan and Liara were exactly where they were at the beginning. No where.

The hanar had actually wanted a service they couldn't provide; only Emile could. He needed someone with spectre status to smuggle something in.

"Well I suppose we should call the commander, tell him about the hanar." Liara said to Kaidan as they left the small glass box like room the hanar had been in.

"No, this is our first mission without the commander, I know him, and this is a test. I will not fail. You can go to him if you want to, but I say we use a little silver tongue on one of the guards who had overseen the transfer." Kaidan suggested, he wasn't going to look like a failure, not when Ashley and Garrus were probably making all sorts of progress.

They found the guard who had told them about the hanar. Figuring him to be a prime suspect Kaidan began to go over lines in his head. _Something flowery, no, something clever, no, damn it why is this so hard?_

Kaidan's thoughts had distracted him from his partner. Liara had begun to glow blue as her biotics flared into existence. As soon as she was sure they were alone, she slammed the turian security officer against the wall.

"I don't like being toyed with, turian. If you plan to throw us to some other long winded dead end you will regret even trying. I suggest you start telling me everything you know about those crates." Liara said, with an uncharacteristic dark inflection.

Kaidan looked incredulously at his blue friend. _Where did that come from?_ The turian pinned to the wall looked terrified, but still shook his head no, obviously he valued his job more than a little pain from an asari, but Liara still had another trick up her sleeve.

"Start speaking now, or I'll flay you alive, with my mind." That did it.

"Uh, please, don't do it, I'll tell you everything!" Kaidan was impressed, and decided to begin playing the good cop angle.

"That's a good choice, let's start with what was in the crates, did you open them up? Did you scan them? What did you do with them?" Kaidan asked in a much more even tone than what Liara had been using.

The guard calmed down a bit and started to reveal everything he knew about the crates. Apparently there was never any attempt to actually open them and start searching them for contraband, so scans were kept to a minimal. There were no traces of element zero, but the guard did notice a weird power signal coming from each crate. There was one specific crate that a massive human had apparently taken away by himself.

"Okay that's all we're gonna get, let him go Liara." Kaidan finally said after the guard had all but poured out his life story to his harassers. Liara decided to let him go, but not without a piece of advice.

"Tell anyone about this, and we will come back for you." The turian guard quickly nodded and set a brisk walk out of the small room they had cornered him in.

Liara noticed Kaidan looking at her, "What?"

"You're so sexy when you're mad," was the only response she got, which caused her to start blushing. Kaidan began to approach her, but was interrupted by Emile walking up to them.

"Hey, why was that turian pissin his pants?" Emile inquired as he approached the two.

"Liara put on her best impression of you, Commander." Kaidan told him, casting a sly glance at the still blushing asari.

"Yeah, I knew Li was a big bad bitch. Come on, we gotta check up on Cheeks and Claws, so stop makin out with your girlfriend in the corner and get a move on Elvis."

"So what was in those crates? Or were you just scarin people cause it's fun?" Emile asked as they started walking. Kaidan gave Emile the exact lines that came out of the turian guard's mouth, it didn't seem like much, but Emile had already seemed to guess.

"Geth, most likely. They've recently been upgrading to plasma tech, so that would probably be the source of the strange power readings. Hell, depending on how big those crates were, they may have snuck a bunch of krogan in. Good work guys."

The three walked over to the Synthetics Insights office elevator and noticed Parasini waiting outside the lift, "What's up with you Parasini?"

"Two of your teammates have recently entered these offices and should be exiting with the evidence to convict Anoleis of corruption."

"And as an Internal Affairs agent, I presume you are here to… collect this evidence." Gianna, to her credit, did not look surprised that he knew about her undercover status.

"No, I'm here because I need them, or you, or anyone, to convince Lorek Qui'in to testify against Anoleis, Commander. The evidence isn't enough, but a testimony from one of the most respected businessmen on Noveria, would be." Emile just nodded his skulled helmet in response, then realized something.

"How long have you been waiting?" If she had left as soon as they had walked into Anoleis' office, then it would have been about five, maybe ten minutes since Ashley and Garrus had gone in.

"Seven minutes, there weren't very many guards in there, so unless you have very mediocre teammates, they should have been done quite a while ago." Emile frowned as he considered that, they were more than a match for ten rent-a-cops, so what was keeping them?

His answer was on its way down the lift, and soon enough the doors opened to Ashley and Garrus.

"Cheeks, is that new lipstick?" Emile suddenly asked. Ashley frowned as she responded.

"No, why?"

"Well I'm only asking cause it's all over Claws' face." Emile pointed out. It was obvious he had tried to rub it off, with some success, but Emile's inhumanly sharp eyes easily picked it out. To Ashley's credit, she didn't stutter or stammer, or even blush, she just came back with a joke.

"He wanted to look pretty and thought it'd be a good compliment to his face paint." She quipped to the group that had assembled. Kaidan and Liara were snickering behind Emile's back, and Wrex and Tali openly laughed at the joke.

Parasini soon interrupted, asking the two if they had the data. Soon they were arguing what business it was of Parasini's; it got to the point where Emile just had to order them to tell the administrator.

They soon paid Lorek Qui'in a visit, and required a little of Kaidan's flowery tongue to finally convince the elder turian to testify. Not to mention the great fun of watching Parasini arrest the slimy salarian, especially when Emile offered Parasini assistance with hauling Anoleis to the prison cells.

Finally, after all that, the team made their way to the garage, pass in hand. A jumpy security guard was there to meet them at the entrance.

"Access to the garage is restricted until further notice, sir." Emile cocked his head, which must have been frightening to the guard as she quickly paled, and extended his left hand. The guard regarded it as one would regard a poisonous snake being thrust in ones face.

Eventually the guard actually noticed what was in the giant human's hand, and granted them access.

As the seven member team moved out into the garage, Emile suddenly noticed his motion tracker get jammed, "GETH! TAKE COVER!"

Violet plasma bolts burst against the concrete floor as a juggernaut class geth walked in, holding a crude plasma turret. Behind the twelve foot machine came a regular set of twenty geth troopers, armed with simple mass accelerator weapons.

"T-Wrex, I want you to pin that juggernaut once it pauses to cool down his plasma gun, Claws I want you to start picking off any snipers you see, ugh, and take care of that damn hopper jamming our radar! Cheeks, Li, and Q-ball, I want you three ladies to start picking apart those troopers. Kaidan, I want you to come with me."

The team scrambled to follow Emile's orders as rounds smashed the cover they had taken. It wasn't long, maybe four or five seconds, before the juggernauts plasma turret overheated, causing a major failure in the weapon, if the alarms ringing from it were any indication. Wrex wasted no time putting an ungodly amount of fire on the red machine, Dragon's Breath easily living up to its name.

Given the slight reprieve from the extremely dangerous plasma rounds, Ashley took the initiative, leaning out of cover and firing accurate bursts into the nearest geth trooper. She was initially surprised to see the golden flare that usually accompanied the commander's secondary shields, rather than the blue bubble of ordinary kinetic barriers. The experienced marine wasn't surprised for too long, as the geth shifted its fire to her.

She popped back out of cover as soon as there was a lull in its fire, and simply held down the trigger. The Reach assault rifle provided surprisingly accurate fire, even at fully automatic, and twenty rounds quickly penetrated the shields of the geth unit, and killed without too much trouble. Ashley cycled the thermal clips in her weapon and readied the special feature.

An ark of electricity shot out from Ashley's position and struck a geth trooper trying to flank her. The burst of electricity easily disrupted the machines shields and left it open to a quick death.

Tali was having a much easier time than Ashley was, thanks to her Eviscerator's electromagnetic properties. The charged shotgun pellets disrupted the shields with an EMP before they even struck, making it the perfect way around the plasma shields. So much so, that the geth had made it very obvious that they were to stay out of the feisty quarian's line of fire.

Which actually turned out to be a poor decision as biotic fields aided them in their retreat my slamming them against the far wall, easy targets for Ashley's accurate rifle fire. Liara's biotics proved to be deadly to more than a few, about a quarter of the machines simply falling apart as the hit the ground.

Garrus had been keeping a steady eye on the door; confident his team would take care of the troopers, and soon spotted a second wave of geth. Two of the new elite geth led the charge of another fifteen geth troopers, while snipers set up position on either side of the garage doors.

The turian marksmen heeded Emile's advice and took care of the snipers first. Two easy cracks of his sniper rifle put both snipers down. He was about to shift his fire to the elite geth, who were bearing down on Ashley's group, when the juggernaut seemed to finally fix its weapon.

Violet bolts once again filled the hangar bay, forcing the team back into cover. Wrex managed to significantly weaken the shields of the tall, red geth before he too was forced into cover. All seemed lost…

THUMP… BANG! Every eye in the garage turned to what was thought to be an inactive grizzly tank. Kaidan's face could clearly be seen behind the driver's seat, which meant Emile was operating the massive railgun mounted on the beastly tank's back.

More powerful than the standard gauss turret, the railgun was slower to charge, but fired a one kilogram projectile, filled with a powerful amount of ordnance, at one and a half times the speed of the gauss. The juggernaut never stood a chance. There simply wasn't a personal shielding system capable of handling the railgun's firepower.

Garrus was the first to snap out of his reverence for the large tank, and quickly put four shots into the elite geth standing at the forefront of the new wave. One shot was capable of breaking the shields; the next easily tore the flashlight optics from the defenseless geth.

The railgun Emile was operating began to gather more energy as the magnetic rails neared full charge. THUMP… BANG! Pieces of geth flew in every direction as the massive gun went off.

The remaining geth were little resistance to the experienced team, and the garage was soon clear of the mechanical menace.

"Alright, everyone in, I don't want to have to explain this to the rent-a-cops. Move, move, move!" Emile shouted as the five remaining team members hopped into the much more spacious grizzly tank.

While this tank was, for the most part, a bigger version of the mako, the railgun on the back was all thanks to Emile's universe.

The large vehicle rumbled out of the garage with surprising speed, so much so that when Captain Matsuo reached the garage, all she found were pieces of geth and a rather large crater in the middle of the floor.

**Holy shit that was a long chapter, for me. I hope this chapter goes over well, I know, I know, I didn't get to the rachni, or Jorge yet, I'm a terrible person. But hey, damn near 5000 words in this chapter, easily the biggest one yet. Tell me what you think in the reviews.**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	18. GODDAMN ELEVATORS!

**Noveria part 2, hooray? Last chapter was really long, but I don't think I'll be able to keep that up, so expect the norm from here on out. Um, just one thing to really clear up, KasumiCain asked how the railgun on the grizzly tank I mentioned, is from Emile's universe. I basically meant that it doesn't use element zero and is based on the design of the mass driver at the end of Reach. I guess that's pretty much it, I guess I could have left that out at the end of the last chapter, but kinda late for that now.**

**Finally this chapter gets to the rachni, back stabbing security guards, and maybe, just maybe, if you're good, Jorge.**

"Keelah! I thought it was going to be better without Emile driving!" Tali screamed from the back seat of the grizzly troop transport tank. The tank was far slower than the mako, but still fast enough to gain impressive height as the fifteen meter long tank passed over snow drifts. The real problem was that Kaidan _liked_ getting air, and the tank didn't handle the landings well.

"Oh please Tali, it's not," CLANG! "that bad!" Kaidan yelled from the driver's seat. The massive tank was actually, quite simple to drive, provided you figured out the pedal system. _Okay, third from the right is third gear second is fourth, and rightmost one is fifth. Oh yeah!_ Kaidan thought as he tried figuring out the six pedal system at his feet.

His foot floored the fifth gear pedal, there was a pause as the engine switched over, then the tank jolted forward, crushing an unfortunate geth rocket trooper standing in the way.

Another advantage the grizzly had to the standard mako was the point defense turrets located on the four corners of the large tank. Simple mass accelerator guns that ran on the old heat sink system, meaning that while they didn't have to swap thermal clips, they were forced to fire in short bursts and were not as powerful. The reason for using the old heat sink system was so the guns couldn't be bypassed while automatically cycling heat sinks. Plus, it wasn't like the anti tank rockets were shielded.

THUD…BANG! "Fuck yeah! Take that mutha fucka!" Emile shouted from the large rail gun on top of the grizzly. The blizzard was still raging, but apparently wasn't enough to stop geth dropships from flying overhead to drop off any number of armatures, colossi being too big for the small aircraft to handle. Unfortunately for them, Emile was a crack shot aim with the incredibly powerful railgun. The smoking hulls of dropships littering the trail behind them were a testament to that.

"Damn it human let me get a shot with that thing!" Wrex shouted from his seat, strategically located right next to the gun, just in case Emile abandoned his seat there.

"Not a chance T-Wrex, Imma havin way too much fun up here." THUD…BANG! Another dropship fell from the skies, "You'd think they'd just stop sending em."

It was odd, seven dropships had flown in from some concealed position, probably a stealth cruiser that had approached Noveria from the blind side and landed nearby, and all had been shot down. Either the storm was so bad the geth had decided to send as many geth as they could, hoping at least some would get in the team's way, or the geth were stupid.

A third option sprung up as they pulled around a tight corner, Liara, Tali, and Ashley all screaming for their lives, and Peak 15 came into sight. Four dropships were pulling out, the others had merely been sent to delay the team until the geth could get Peak 15 fully fortified.

THUD…BANG! Emile wasn't going to let them get away scot-free, "Take that BITCH!"

"Do you have to scream so loudly every time you shoot that thing? The gun is loud enough; I think it made your point for you." Ashley complained.

"Cheeks, stow it. I'm your commanding officer, and I order you to listen and appreciate my victory liners." Ashley rolled her eyes as Kaidan tried to figure out how to stop the multi-ton tank, he was… unsuccessful.

"You guys might want to hold on to something!" Kaidan called. The tank was stuck in fifth gear and headed straight for the garage doors; the doors never stood a chance.

A humongous crash and subsequent screeching of metal ensued as the massive tank smashed through the solid steel doors and flattened the juggernaut that was waiting on the other side.

The tank stalled and the team quickly piled out as the stunned krogan at the far end of the garage finally snapped out of it, and fired on the team, "Okay, next time, someone with a license is driving the massive tank. I mean, come on Kaidan! Did you not ever think to look for the brake earlier?"

While Emile was shouting at his moron of an LT, he moved behind one of the point defense mass accelerators on the tank, "Commander what are you doing!" Garrus shouted at him. The turian lined up a shot on the lesser krogan and fired, the reptilian alien's shields were no match for the incredibly powerful sniper rifle.

After watching the now headless alien fall through his scope, Garrus turned back to Emile, what he saw floored him. Emile had ripped off the turret, and seemed to be syncing the turret to his armor with his omnitool. _Don't we already have a guy for that?_ Garrus wondered.

As if on cue, Wrex let Dragon's Breath rip, easily overpowering another krogan's shields and obliterating the flesh beneath. He turned the massive gun to the two battlemasters who had, until now, been hanging back, willing to let the six underling krogans soften up the elite team for them.

Metal shards the size of a grain of sand, flew out of the muzzle of Dragon's Breath at incredible speeds, and were deflected by powerful plasma shields taken directly from dead sangheili zealots. This was why Emile was readying another heavy gun, because two biotically charged krogan battlemasters requires plenty of firepower.

The second machine gun soon spat death at the two massive aliens while the rest of the team quickly lined themselves up for the kill. The battlemasters, being the biggest, strongest, and smartest krogan from Saren's clone army, strafed from cover to cover, trying to get close enough to use their Claymore shotguns.

Before either could get close enough, a battlemaster's shields dropped; poor guy never knew what hit him as a deafening CRACK filled the garage and he dropped to the ground without his head. The second battlemaster was quickly worked up into a blood rage as he watched his comrade fall.

The seven foot alien thundered out of cover and was met with a biotic field throwing his flailing body into the air, where seven guns converged.

"Good work on that lift, Li. Alright team let's go, we gotta entire building to scour for Saren's lackeys." Emile ordered the team as a bloody corpse dropped to the ground behind him. He left the turret he had ripped off behind, knowing his shotgun would make better use out of the tight quarters inside the building.

The team piled into the elevator; _damn we gotta lotta people on this team._ Seven people, two of which took up a large amount of room, didn't leave a lot of elbow room in the utilitarian lift.

"Okay, whoever did that, better speak up, now!" Ashley's angry voice cut through the quiet hum of the elevator.

"Did what, Cheeks?" Emile asked as he looked up from the ground, he had been leaning against the front left corner of the lift. He saw a pained expression on the faces of Ashley, Kaidan, Liara, and Garrus.

"Oh nothing Commander, just some people like to torture others with gas attacks." Williams pointedly replied. Emile understood now, someone had 'cut the cheese' in the crowded elevator. He quickly took stock of who was showing signs of discomfort, or more importantly, who wasn't.

"T-Wrex, are you using chemical warfare on your own teammates? That's just wrong." Every eye in the elevator turned to the smiling krogan, "What?"

Before the team could really get mad at the krogan for stinking up the elevator, they reached their destination, and found a curiously empty room. _Four dropships and they leave rooms unguarded? Uh-uh, it's gotta be a trap._

"Elvis, Q-ball, get ready with some overloads. Claws, I want you to watch that walkway up there, perfect spot for a sniper. T-Wrex, Li, and Cheeks, I want you three to watch my back, I'm gonna spring this trap." As Emile finished his plan, he tromped out in the snow.

Suspicious mounds of snow exploded into action as geth shock troopers wielding stolen plasma rifles sprung their trap. Emile already had his shotgun out, and the nearest shock trooper never had a chance.

As he turned away from what was left of the first geth, he saw out of the corner of his eye, two other geth have their shields stripped by overloads. Wrex took the opportunity, and shredded the machines with his massive gun.

More soft clunks alerted Emile to the geth troopers dropping from the ceiling, he couldn't get an accurate count, but there were over thirty of the machines, all wielding stolen Covenant plasma weapons, "STAY IN COVER! THEY GOT PLASMA WEAPONS!"

One hit from the searing plasma would burn through anyone but Wrex's and Emile's armor, so cover was the only protection the rest of the team had from the overwhelming geth. Wrex put his personal plasma shield to good use, chopping down geth and providing cover while the rest of the team scrambled for the portion of the room that was dropped down from the rest.

Emile pummeled any geth foolish enough to get within arms reach, and blasted away any other geth with his incredibly powerful shotgun. Eventually the directed energy weapons breached his shields and started stinging at his armor, but the thick titanium plates were built to take much worse beatings, like falling from space.

Still, Emile spun away from the plasma, and dashed behind a stupidly placed concrete wall in the middle of the room, _who the fuck designs these places?_ Plasma melted and chipped away at the concrete, until the geth firing the plasma found themselves wrapped in a biotic field and slammed against the wall.

The only downfall of plasma shields were against biotics. They don't generate a mass effect field to counteract the dark energy currents wielded by a biotic. Liara and Kaidan worked in tandem to throw, lift, and smash geth troopers while Tali was getting sore wrists from firing her Eviscerator constantly, only stopping to pump through thermal clips.

Wrex and Garrus, meanwhile, launched a charge past the geth on the lower level and to the stairs, where six elite geth stood waiting. Dragon's Breath softened targets as Wrex led the charge, while the Finger of God finished them as Garrus would lean out from behind the massive krogan.

The first elite geth was no trouble, the second was hardly worth noting, but the third charged the massive krogan head on, before Dragon's Breath could take out its shields.

Wrex was a powerhouse in his exoskeleton armor, but these elite geth used a synthetic muscle tissue to approximate a Spartan's strength. The two titans grappled with each other as Garrus launched an overload into the next elite, stripping its shields. The turian knew that unless he could finish the remaining three, it didn't matter who won the wrestling match.

Emile leaned out of cover just in time to see the krogan/turian duo charge up the stairs. He followed at a distance, keeping their six covered while they did so, knowing that all it would take was one lucky shot from some geth with a plasma rifle to kill Garrus from behind. He reached the stairs and looked back at the rest of his team from behind the cement wall, they were quickly mopping things up as Ashley coordinated Kaidan and Liara's biotic attacks and Tali finished off any stragglers.

He continued up the stairs and was met with a sight of a krogan versus geth boxing match. Thanks to the krogan's biotics, the geth was loosing quickly, but it was not without some victories of its own. Garrus was pinned in a small office room by three elite geth, one with a gaping hole in its chest. They were closing in on the turian taking cover behind the desk when Emile crashed through the office window.

Emile used his momentum and incredible weight to smash the lead geth against the wall, effectively ending its 'life'. He turned back to the other two just in time to block a jab sent by the next one. Grabbing that one's arm, Emile spun the heavy geth into the wall next to him, and followed up by throwing his fist through the elite's head and into the wall.

He didn't bother turning around for the third geth, the one with the hole in its chest, as he heard the resounding CRACK of Garrus' sniper rifle, and the subsequent crash of the machine hitting the floor.

Wrex jogged into the room, looking for Garrus, and instead found himself the subject of Emile's wrath, "Just what the hell were you two thinking? Charging into the enemy formation against enemies that you had little to no chance against alone, I don't mind that you came up with the gutsy strategy, just ask my permission, or at least tell me what you're gonna do! I had to pull several strays off your back and your damned lucky I even saw you charge!"

Garrus looked like he was going to respond but Emile held up his hand silencing them, "It's my job to make sure you guys survive, I can't do that if you keep pulling stupid stunts without at least warning me. Cheeks, Li, Elvis, Q-ball, get up here."

They were about to pile out of the office to meet up with the other four team members, when the duct behind them started rattling. Emile ushered the two others out of the door and turned to face the duct.

The grate shot up into the ceiling and a massive insect that Emile had only seen in historical texts, "RACHNI!"

As soon as Emile shouted the warning, he had to dodge to tentacle like arms that came swinging for him. He spun to the right and managed to grab a passing arm. He pulled the giant bug to him and brought his foot down on its pincer like head.

After repeated stomps to ensure that it was indeed dead, he turned to look at the team gathered outside the office. While most of the team looked disturbed that the rachni were back, Wrex looked devastated, "My people were neutered because we wiped them all out, and they ain't even dead. What a kick in the quad."

"Cheer up T-Wrex, this whole complex just turned into a free fire zone." _Whoa, spooky._ The reused line seemed to do the trick as Wrex perked up at the idea of finally putting the murderous insect race to death.

The team continued on, finding another elevator, "Okay, maybe Wrex should go in the next one." Kaidan offered.

"Elvis, shut up before T-Wrex eats you, if you have to plug your nose then deal with it." Emile ordered as they all piled in. The lift went up, approximately the same distance the last elevator went down. _And what the fuck was wrong with just a hallway?_

They moved in to the next room, where they found a long, wide room with terminals creating three distinct paths down the room. There were doors on either side at the end of the room, one went to the reactor, the other went to the tram station, _that's where we need to go, but it's locked._ There was another door at the far end of the hall, it led to the roof.

"Q-ball, you're the resident engineer, these doors are locked, any reason why?" Emile asked as he turned to the quarian.

Tali thought it over in her head, "I would imagine it's because the VI is down, the VI core should be nearby, usually a large circular device would be found right near here. See, there's the power junction that would run power to the VI in case the reactor's down, but I don't see the VI core."

Emile thought it over in his head; he recalled the history of Peak 15 on his visor. _There it is._ Emile turned the power junction on and said, "Authorization SPARTAN A239, Noble Four."

Power flooded into the lights of the room and an avatar appeared in front of Emile, without the need of a holographic junction. Peak 15 had been created with a new top of the line VI, the ones created by Dot, and in all its incredible foresight, had programmed each VI to allow Emile unrestricted access, not to mention the new data cores of the VI's were incredibly small in comparison to the old ones.

A smooth female voice rang out from the avatar, "Greetings, Noble Four, this unit's name is Mira. How can I help you today?" Tali's eyes popped at the sudden appearance of the VI.

"I'll explain later Q-ball. Mira, what's with the trams?"

"Reactor's fuel line has been cut, and the control systems for the tram systems have been compromised by the rachni presence. To restore service to the trams, the H3 fuel line in the reactor must be replaced, and the rachni on the roof must be terminated."

Emile nodded as he was already formulating who would do what, then a thought hit him, "Mira, who disabled you?"

"Noble Five, however, as you are a higher rank than him, you had the necessary authority to override his order."

_Big man,_ "What was Noble Five's condition?"

"This unit is designed to help the workers of Peak 15 in various fields, including medicine. There was an anomaly on both Noble Five and Matriarch Benezia's brainwave pattern."

"Elaborate please."

"Certainly, Noble Four. There were two brainwave patterns being exerted over their original brainwaves. The other asari with them, only had the anomalous brainwave patterns, indicating that their brainwaves have been rewritten, but Noble Five and Matriarch Benezia's brainwaves are simply being suppressed."

"Is there anyway to, I don't know, un-suppress them?" Emile was grasping here, he didn't want to admit his friend was gone.

"Affirmative, a grade three concussion should destroy the additional brainwave patterns, and their old brainwave patterns would reassert themselves." Both Emile and Liara brightened up considerably; Liara's mother could be saved, as could Emile's brother in arms. Though Emile calmed himself down considerably as he remembered that he'd have to somehow knock out _**Jorge**_, which would be neither easy, nor painless for anyone who tried.

"Alright, Q-ball, take everyone but T-Wrex to the reactor, I gotta feelin Jorge left plenty of surprises for you guys in the reactor room. T-Wrex, let's squash some bugs." The team split into their designated teams and headed for their separate destinations.

Emile and Wrex walked up a small flight of stairs to an elevator, _what's with these people and elevators?_ Wrex seemed to get more and more anxious as the lift approached the roof, "You okay T-Wrex?"

"It's just, these bugs are the whole reason my people are in the position they're in now. We were lifted before our time to fight monsters no one else could, and now they're back? I just want to make sure that my people aren't dying for nothing, that we at least did our job." Wrex explained.

Emile patted his large reptilian friend on the back, "Don't worry, we'll squash em back into extinction." Wrex just nodded at the massive human as the lift came to a stop.

"Okay, beyond that door I'm reading twelve targets, get your gun ready T-Wrex." Emile didn't bother actually hitting the switch to open the door, he backed up and rammed his half ton frame straight through, crushing several of the smaller green rachni, who had clumped together to only form one target on Emile's motion tracker.

Wrex sprinted out past the debris Emile left in his wake and opened up with Dragon's Breath. His first target was a rachni sitting atop of one of the many computer terminals. The insect's hard carapace was no match for the pure firepower Wrex was spitting out at it, and its blood sprayed the other rachni hiding behind the terminals.

Emile leapt over one row of terminals and landed on the back of a rachni soldier. The massive insect was much stronger than most enemies Emile had faced in this new universe, and did not simply die from the massive Spartan's weight. In fact, not only did it not die, the creature seemed unperturbed in its movements as it tried to buck him off.

The giant human grabbed both acid spitting tentacles with one hand, riding the raging insect like a rodeo bull, and readied his shotgun with his other hand. However, instead of shooting down at the insect he rode, he pointed the shotgun at another rachni soldier approaching. BOOM! The armored plates of the insect were no match for Dragon's Breath, so they stood no chance against a blast from the shotgun responsible for the death of a thresher maw.

Emile urged the rachni he was no riding onwards, over the gooey mess left by its dead comrade as Wrex used a mechanically and biotically enhanced punch to send another large bug flying through the window. The krogan was in a full on blood rage, the fact his peoples enemies had come back combined with the sting of the chilly air on his reptilian skin left no room for mercy.

Dragon's Breath on his back, Wrex charged a group of three rachni soldiers, throwing a glowing blue fist into the ground as he reached the group. The resulting biotic shockwave tossed the giant insects away from the raging krogan, leaving easy targets for his boot.

While Wrex was raging on three rachni soldiers, Emile rode his rachni onwards, blasting any insect foolish enough to come close to the dangerous man. Considering the lack of sentience among an individual rachni soldier without its queen, the foolish numbered in the many.

Soon the only rachni left was the one still trying to buck Emile off. The Spartan used his kukri to slice off the tentacles he had held, and silenced the pained cries of the injured insect with a slash to the head.

"Well that was easy, strong little buggers though. I wonder how the other team is doing."

"Tali, duck!" Kaidan yelled at the quarian as he sent a biotic throw into the elite geth that had used a camo module to sneak up on them. They had been assaulted almost as soon as they had entered the reactor room.

At the moment, Tali was fixing the H3 fuel line, or trying to, and Kaidan was covering her as the rest of the team focused on the various geth scattered throughout the room.

Garrus led the team trying to remove the geth presence, it wasn't going well. The team was perfect for destroying geth troopers in large numbers, even several destroyers, but the five elite geth that had taken cover in the control room, were a heavy hitter's territory.

Liara would slam one with her biotics, and the other two would attempt to finish it off with their assault rifles, but the other four would cover their comrade. Finally Garrus was getting frustrated.

As he put his Vindicator on his back in favor of the more powerful Finger of God, he laid out his plan, "Liara, put a singularity on the far side of that room, Ash, I want you hot on my talons when I go in."

Just before the turian started the countdown, he could have sworn he heard Kaidan yell from the floor below them "bow chicka bow wow," but that would have been ridiculous. As soon as his three fingered hand made a fist, Liara threw an exorbitant amount of biotic energy into the door on the far side of the control room, pulling three of the elite geth into the crushing vicinity of the singularity.

Garrus hopped into the room, firing his powerful sniper rifle into the equally powerful shields of the nearest elite geth. He didn't put a second shot into it however, as he turned and pounded the second thermal clip of the magazine into the shields of the second not caught by the singularity, and dove to the side.

Ashley had almost stepped on her turian 'friend' as she closely followed him. She caught on to his plan immediately, and put down the unshielded geth Garrus had shot first, before the turian could even turn to the second one. The second geth met the same fate as the first, and the trio turned to the three geth at the far side of the room.

The singularity had faded, but the singularity had jacked with the exposed circuitry and warped the armor plates, which disrupted the plasma shielding and made them inoperable. Three shots from Liara's Carnifax put the geth out of commission.

"Good work team, let's see how Kaidan and Tali are doing." The trio found the duo standing at the exit.

"Keelah, what took you bosh'tets so long? Were Garrus and Ashley kissing again?" Tali playfully bantered, Ashley just joked back.

"Nah, we were gonna do that in the lift." She said with a wink, Garrus put his hand on his face, _what is it humans call it? Face palming?_ They piled into the lift and started back up to the VI control room.

Emile and Wrex were lounging around the room when they got back, Wrex was seated on a dead rachni, it appeared they were ambushed through the ducts as there were dead rachni scattered through the room.

"Took you long enough, were Cheeks and Claws makin out again?" Kaidan couldn't help but laugh at the irony of Emile's statement. It wasn't long before Liara was giggling too as they moved on to the tram station.

They arrived to the other end of the tram rail to find a completely empty room with two elevators on one wall. Emile had finally had enough, "GOD DAMN IT! What is with these people and ELEVATORS!"

Emile's sudden outburst stunned the team, finally Garrus asked, "Elevators, Commander?" Emile glared back at the turian before he calmed down, _gettin mad at elevators, what the hell._

"Never mind Claws," Emile opened a channel to Mira, "Mira, what are the different elevator's for? One says hotlabs, the other is… what exactly?"

"The other elevator will lead you to the survivors my scan shows. Warning, a security team is currently guarding the exit of that lift, current simulations have shown a high probability that the aliens have them on high guard, proceed with caution."

"You heard the lady, Li, Elvis, T-Wrex, I want a biotic barrier up as soon as the elevator reaches the top." The three commandoes nodded and took the foremost position in the elevator, ready to spring it up.

As soon as the lift opened, a powerful biotic barrier shot up, deflecting some of the jumpy guards' gunfire. Thankfully the captain of the security team kept a level head, "CEASE FIRE! Those things don't have biotics. Stand down."

Emile nodded to the team under his command and the biotic barrier dropped. Emile was the first out the door; the security team almost opened up again at the sight of his skulled face. The Spartan held up a hand and said, "You boys alright?"

The captain walked up to the Spartan, a little nervously, and gave an affirmative. Emile questioned the captain for about five minutes before learning all he needed to know.

The captain had said Benezia was in the hotlabs, which was a lie Emile detected right away, and that he hadn't seen her since, judging from the shifty eyes of all the guards, Benezia had told them to kill Emile and his team.

"Drop the act, _Captain_," Emile put a disgusted emphasis on the word captain, "What did Benezia want? Where is she really?"

"She told us you were good, OPEN FI- AGH!" The captain never finished his sentence as Emile's fist punched through his throat. The nearest guard charged Emile, a bad mistake.

A backhand from the Spartan crushed his skull and broke his neck, sending the guard flying across the room. The kukri Emile carried on his right shoulder found itself buried deep in the skull of another guard, having been thrown across the room. Emile charged the remaining two guards and smashed their skulls together, turning them into a bloody pulp.

Clap…clap…clap, "Good work, Punk. I see you haven't lost your touch." A deep voice rang out from the corridor behind the guards' position. From the shadows stepped a seven and a half foot armored monster.

"Jorge," Emile nearly whispered. He locked eyes with the bigger Spartan. Jorge didn't move, he simply stared down Emile for a few moments longer until he spoke, "Benezia's through there, you'll find your path marked in blood, so tell your team to go, Punk, you and I have some business to settle."

Emile waved his team on, Jorge stood to the side and let the team pass, never taking his visor off of Emile. Soon the team had disappeared down the corridor.

"Jorge, listen, you've been-," Emile never got to finish as a massive fist blurred in and struck the smaller Spartan's chest, throwing him back into the wall.

Emile was back on his second in less than a second, which was too late as a massive titanium boot swept him off his own feet again. Jorge was on top of Emile in half a second and was throwing his fist for Emile's visor, only for that fist to be struck to the side and the smaller body to spin the bigger body around.

Emile was only afforded two strikes at the bigger man's visor before he had to leap off as a massive fist came swinging in. Jorge was back on his feet but was unable to block the first two swings Emile launched into the big man's helmet. The third and fourth were blocked and Jorge held onto Emile's wrist as he threw the smaller man across the room.

Emile didn't bother getting to his feet, he just brought his knees to his chest and threw his feet out, striking the Spartan Two in the chest, barely halting him.

Emile was confused as the fight raged on, Jorge should be able to pummel him mercilessly, granted a couple of good strikes would be thrown in by Emile, but the big man was faster and stronger. Emile realized that the indoctrinated Jorge didn't have the training of the real Jorge; he was fighting a pale copy of Jorge's real moves.

"Jorge, ugh, snap out of it!" Emile urged as he continued the fight, "Remember fighting together?" Jorge wasn't phased as his fists blurred around Emile's seemingly stagnant hands. The only thing keeping Emile from being pummeled was instinct. He and Jorge had sparred plenty over their years as Noble Team members, he knew exactly what moves Jorge liked to pull.

Emile continued to plead with Jorge, with seemingly no success. Finally Jorge seemed to get angry about his continually blocked moves, and started going into a rage. Fists flew in from seemingly random directions, with a speed a power Emile had never encountered.

Even if he was able to get an arm in the way of a fist, it seemingly did nothing. After a few minutes after terrible punishment, Emile's armor was covered in dents, seriously damaging the internal systems, biofoam injectors were down, shields were down, the gel layer was in tatters, and the titanium plates were bent and ruined. The fact Emile was still standing, barely, was a testament to just how well made Spartans are.

Eventually though, Jorge had forced Emile to his knees, the massive Spartan was about to crush the smaller one's head before Jorge asked, "Any last words?"

"Remember Reach." Jorge's eyes popped, he remembered. He remembered everything.

"What have I done?" Jorge whispered, he took his helmet off, truly shaken by what he had just done to his brother in arms. He was contemplating what had just happened, fighting for control, when a long metal bar slammed into the side of his head.

"That should do it," Emile gasped; he had taken a serious beating. His unbreakable bones had been pushed to the limits; he was pretty sure Jorge had broken several of his ribs and fractured his forearms. The armor was going to need a serious overhaul; he may need to wear something else for a week or so. The only part that had take no damage was his visor, Jorge had for some reason left that alone.

He bent the steel bar he had used to give Jorge the required concussion into handcuffs for the massive man, in case Mira was wrong. Emile shambled at first as he looked to catch up to the team.

True to Jorge's words, there were a line of bodies, most likely killed by the man himself, leading straight to Benezia. He entered the room with his team in it to find a full on firefight.

It appeared to be twelve asari commandoes and ten geth snipers trying to destroy his team, while Benezia herself was watching. Emile didn't make his presence know as his team was making quick work of the asari commandoes. He snuck up behind Benezia and delivered an open palmed smack to the side of her skull, hard. Maybe a bit too hard, but she'd live.

The last of the enemy forces fell, and Garrus was the first to look for Benezia, instead he was treated to the sight of a battered Emile standing over her unconscious form, "Commander!"

Emile turned his head to the team, "Hey Claws, how's it goin?" with those words, he collapsed.

**Well there you go, I didn't go into detail on the Benezia fight, mostly because I figured it'd be just like the game. I hope the Jorge fight came out well, and I hope the whole knocking them unconscious thing makes sense. I figured that without the constant influence of Sovereign, the mind would fix itself after being scrambled by a concussion. And the whole Mira thing, I figured I'd show a little more about how Emile has influenced the ME verse, and how Dot is still a major player. **

**Next chapter we'll find out what happened to the rachni queen, I promise. Remember to tell me what you think and Happy New Year.**


	19. Reunions, Thievery, and Assimilating

**Jorge is BACK! W00T1!1! Now we got two Spartans, and one of them is a very large man. A lot of people had been hoping that Emile spares the rachni queen, but I never said he'd be the one to decide… Wrex is. And I know for sure that his decision will surprise you. Also, unsure of what to do with Benezia; just send her on her way? Have her help take down Saren? What the fuck do you guys think?**

**This chapter the fate of the rachni is revealed, Emile and Jorge are reunited, and Trip bonds with the team.**

Garrus rushed to the collapsed form of Emile, "Commander! Come on, don't faint on me again!"

The rest of the team converged over the battered form of their commander, while Liara checked on her mother. She was relieved to find a pulse and a steady breathing pattern. She applied some medigel to her head wound and joined everyone else by Emile.

"Will he be alright?" she asked. Garrus and Ashley were bent over him, there were some holes left by what must have been brutal punches. They were checking his vitals by pointing their omnitools at the breaches in Emile's armor; Ashley turned to the asari, and nodded.

Liara and the rest of the team breathed a sigh of relief, they certainly didn't want to see the most extraordinary individual they had ever even heard of, die.

Suddenly, a movement caught Wrex's eye. An asari commando, previously killed by the krogan himself, was staggering up to the team. Multiple holes riddled her body, there was no way she should be alive, but there was something about the way she was moving, it seemed as though she was possessed.

Wrex got the attention of his team; they all looked over to the dead asari as it walked up to the rachni queen's cage. The quintessential zombie turned once she reached the glass wall and spoke.

"This one will serve as our voice."

"What the hell are you talking about, asari?" Wrex demanded, though he already had an inkling as to what exactly was going on.

"This one serves as our voice through which the rachni will sing." Wrex growled at the mention of the murderous bugs.

"It won't for much longer! I'm gonna rip you to pieces!" But before he could make good on his promise, the rachni queen spoke again.

"I understand. We have committed many atrocities, long ago a sour note entered the song of the rachni, forcing us to seek out war, to seek out death." Wrex stopped, it was pretty obvious what she meant, someone had forced them into wars, the rachni didn't really want.

Wrex pondered the meaning of this, the queen was young, and there was no lying among telepathic creatures. His people had sacrificed their very existence, just to end theirs. It was a kick straight to the quad of his people to allow the insectoids to go free, but also futile. What was the point? This queen posed no threat, she didn't want war, and even if she did, then a cure to the genophage was right around the corner as the rest of the galaxy would seek to unleash his people once more. But then his people would just be tools once more, and the same fate as last time surely awaited them.

"Just… go, before I change my mind. But know that if you come back with war, my people will be there to hunt you down once more." Wrex told the queen as he hit the release. He turned to regard the shocked team.

"It's time the krogan let this go, we're not tools, and I won't destroy a people who don't deserve it, like what happened to mine." He bent over Emile and picked him up. Even with the mechanical enhancements of his exoskeleton, Emile was heavy. Fortunately, the krogan had excellent stamina as the team made there way back.

They stomped through the dead bodies, Wrex carrying the half ton Spartan while Garrus had Benezia slung over his shoulders, and arrived at the elevator leading to the tram station.

A groan caught their attention and they looked over to see the armored monster from before lying on the ground, helmetless. He groaned again and opened his eyes. He seemed confused at first, looking around, then he seemed to remember what was going on and started to get to his feet, only to find his hands bound in a steel bar.

He easily bent the bar off of his trapped hands and finally got to his feet. His eyes searched the room and, unfortunately, his eyes fell upon Emile's battered form first.

"What did you do to him?!" Jorge growled and was about to charge the krogan holding Emile's broke body, until said krogan spoke up.

"We applied first aid to his wounds, and I carried him off a battlefield, you, on the other hand, beat the living shit out of him!" Jorge paused and let the memories come back. he still had a rather nasty bump where Emile had struck him with a steel bar, but that was nothing compared to some of the damage Jorge had taken.

"Right, sorry. Here, he can't be easy to carry." Jorge muttered as he took Emile from Wrex, "Who are you people?"

"I'm Kaidan, probably Emile's first friend since he showed up here. That's Ashley, we're Alliance marines. The asari is Liara, the quarian is Tali, the turian is Garrus, and the big guy is Wrex." Jorge nodded to the much smaller human, he was still confused, but he remembered enough of his time as an indoctrinated flunky to know what the various aliens were, and that they weren't hostile. That didn't make him comfortable around them, but he wasn't killing them yet.

Jorge held Emile in one arm and slid his helmet on with the other. As soon as his helmet was on, he was contacted by the local VI, Mira.

"Noble Five, it is good to see that you have returned to normal. There is a pressing matter you, or Noble Four's team must attend to." _Emile's team? Since when is he a team leader?_ "The hotlabs are currently occupied by rachni drones the queen is incapable of controlling. There is a neutron purge that must be activated. Unfortunately, this must be activated manually."

"Always a bloody catch." Jorge muttered under his breath, he turned to the team looking at him suspiciously, as though he could go insane at any point. He told them what Mira told him. They still regarded him suspiciously, but they agreed to help him do this, as if he needed their help with bloody bugs.

They dropped Emile off on the trams and Jorge told them to wait there while he took care of the bugs. They seemed a little uncomfortable letting the big man tromp around without supervision, but Tali reminded them that Emile trusted them, they should trust Jorge.

That left Jorge with a great deal of questions as he got in the elevator to go activate the neutron purge. What was this about Emile's team? What about this whole trusting aliens business? Emile was always the most zealous about killing aliens, why would he trust them now?

The time for Jorge's internal questioning was over as the elevator reached the bottom. He made his way into the room, slowly. There was a dead man lying on the floor and one of those… rachni? standing next to the body.

Jorge charged the massive insect, grabbed the tentacle arms that shot out towards him, and spun the bug over his head, gaining speed, and slammed it down on the ground. The concussive force smashed the exoskeleton and sprayed greenish, gooey blood all over Jorge. _Disgusting._

The Spartan checked the dead man's body; he found the code necessary to activate the neutron purge. He marched over to the door at the far end of the room and found a computer terminal. Jorge punched in the code and heard a warning blared from Mira, "Warning, Noble Five, you have thirty seconds to get to the elevator before the purge activates, and you die trying to escape."

"Bloody well should have told me that before!" Jorge yelled as he charged back to the elevator.

Rachni poured out of the vents, all trying to keep Jorge from escaping. As if they could. Jorge grabbed one rachni using the same strategy as last time. The only difference was he brought it down on other rachni.

In just under twenty seconds, Jorge had smashed his way through the rachni horde, and punched the elevator controls. As the lift sped upwards, Jorge listened to the dying screams of the rachni as their brainstems were burned from the inside out.

The massive Spartan left the elevator and headed towards the tram, noticing with some amusement that he was still holding a relatively intact, dead rachni, and was covered in their gooey blood. He just smirked under his weathered helmet and dragged the body into the tram.

The team all turned to regard him, but that wasn't what interested him. Emile was sitting up, helmet off, working on one of those orange things he had seen on peoples arms when he was indoctrinated.

"Emile?" Jorge asked with a slight whisper. Emile turned to look at him, "Hey! Big man! How's yo head? I hope I didn't hit you too hard."

Jorge slid his helmet off, revealing a gash across his left temple, "What, this? I figured maybe a little girl assaulted me with a rubber stick, but it makes more sense that it was you, a little girl would have done much more damage."

Emile, and a couple of his teammates, chuckled. Then Wrex pointed to the dead, but relatively intact rachni, "What're you gonna do with that? As a matter of fact, what are you doing with it in the first place?"

"Oh, this. It _was_ being used as a club to beat other rachni around, but now? I don't know." Wrex looked confused, until he put it together in his head. This man was so strong; he had just used a five hundred pound insect as a melee weapon, albeit a clumsy weapon, but still flung it around with enough force to kill other rachni, impressive.

Emile just chuckled a little, "Well Five that sounds just like you. The babies dead?" Jorge nodded the affirmative, "Good, we'll be headed back to my ship, there's plenty I'll need to brief you on."

"_Your_ ship, Four?" Jorge asked tentatively, what the hell was Emile talking about?

"_My_ ship, Five. I'm a commander now, so you should technically call me sir." Emile told him with a smug satisfaction.

"That ain't happenin Punk. You could be the commander in chief for all I care, you're still a punk, Punk." Jorge retorted, but he did notice the silver leaf signifying his commander status, _damn, he outranks me now._

"I didn't expect you to, Big Man, that'd be out of character." Emile smirked. The team observed the two talking to each other, and they found it hard to believe they were throwing punches at each other just an hour ago.

The rest of the trip back to the Normandy was silent. The reason was because they didn't go through Port Hanshan. The blizzard had cleared up and the Normandy was able to pick them, and the grizzly tank up.

"Isn't that illegal Four?" Jorge asked as Kaidan drove the grizzly into the cargo bay. There was limited room, but they managed to park it next to all the manufacturing equipment.

"Nah, I'm a spectre, I do what I want, take what I want, kill whoever I want. It's… pretty sweet." Emile admitted. He wasn't big on being a spectre at first, but the perks were pretty sweet. He was able to just ignore what anyone said, and do what he wanted.

"Hm, must be nice. Can you imagine Three's reaction to the moral dubiousness though? I'm all for moral standings, but Jun would go insane over this."

"Yeah, Three was always a boy scout." Emile responded, "Let's head up to the comm. room, we gotta brief you over the situation."

"NO!" a voice rang out, "Not until you get treated for your multiple lacerations, bruising, broken bones, and any internal damage."

"C'mon Doc Chalk! It ain't that bad, I've been hurt worse." Emile pleaded, it was to no avail as Doctor Chakwas stepped onto her tip toes and grabbed his ear as his skulled helmet was hanging off the magnet strip on his lower back, "Ow, owowowowow, okay, okay, I'll go, let's go. Jorge, ask Claws and Elvis to give you the debrief."

_Claws? Elvis?_ "That would be us, um… sir. I think." Jorge looked to his left as Emile disappeared up the elevator. What he found was the Saren like alien, _what are they called, turians?_ and the lieutenant from earlier.

"Um, actually I should call you sir, sir. Um, I thought your names were Kaidan and…"

"Garrus. Claws is my nickname, Elvis is his. That isn't what we call each other, just what the commander calls us. Combined, we know more about Emile's story here than anyone in this universe. Mostly because we experienced it."

"Yeah, Emile sure took any unit he was with for one hell of a ride. C'mon, we'll go get you up to speed, oh, and before I forget, welcome to the Freak Show." Jorge snorted at the name of the team, _figures_. The debriefing took a few hours as Jorge was brought up to speed. The most surprising and hard to get was just _how good_ a leader Emile turned out to be. Jorge had always just figured that Emile detested any form of responsibility, but with what was going on here, he just had to wonder, did he really know who Emile was? Did anyone?

"C'mon Doc Chalk, do you really have to knock me out for this?" Emile was whining as Chakwas explained what she was going to do. Apparently Emile's wounds were serious enough that she'd have to knock him out to perform some minor surgeries. Oh, and Tali would have to find some way to weld the fractures in his metal covered bones. No big deal.

"I'm quite sure Commander, besides, the bed just opened up. Matriarch Benezia how are you feeling?" the doctor asked the asari. The matriarch had just woken up to bandages wrapped around her scalp crests.

"I am fine, though my head hurts, and I can no longer hear Saren's voice in my head. How is this possible?"

"Yeah, that's my bad blue girl, I uh, I hit you, on the head, really hard, maybe too hard. You should probably take it easy." Emile confessed. Benezia looked at the massive human, no small amount of awe being inspired from the massive, scarred human who seemed to have taken more damage than a krogan could take, and walk around as though nothing had happened to him. It reminded her of the one other person like that.

"What happened to Jorge, the hu-," Benezia was cut off as Emile raised his hand.

"Noble Five is just fine ma'am. Uh, Jorge if you prefer to call him that, is right upstairs getting a debrief from my teammates. If you need to talk to him or anything I'm sure you can just ask your daughter for directions, she's waiting just outside." Benezia looked grateful for the information and headed out the door.

"Mother!" Liara gasped as she watched Benezia walk out the med bay doors.

"Liara! I am well, but what of yourself?" the concerned mother asked as she went over her daughter. It was kind of weird, they had never been very close before this event, but now they were finally acting like a real daughter mother pair.

"I am well mother. What about you though, are you really well? You were just used by an egomaniacal turian to further his agenda of galactic destruction. Are you really okay?"

Benezia smiled softly as she realized what her daughter had said, "It will take some time for me to get over this, I'm sure, but for now I am fine."

Liara and her mother talked for about another hour until they were interrupted by none other than Jorge himself.

"Excuse me ladies, but I'm going to need to borrow Liara." They both turned to the hulking man, but Liara was the first to respond.

"Why do you need me?"

"There's a geth stealth cruiser on the surface. It's loaded with Covenant plasma tech, I need a biotic specialist for when we board this thing, and I understand that's you."

Liara nodded, and then a thought occurred to her, "We should probably take Tali and Trip with us as well. Tali's a geth expert and Trip might need to stretch his legs, plus, as much as his breath smells, he's really good at killing geth."

"Okay, Tali is the quarian girl, but I don't think I've met this Trip person." Liara just whistled in response. A few seconds of silence until the sound of claws clacking on the metal floor, then barking, and suddenly a massive reptilian animal skid around the corner and tackled Liara.

Benezia was ready to biotically throw the varren off of her daughter until she heard laughter coming from Liara, "Trip! Hehehe, stop it, get off!"

The varren whined and got off, allowing a drool covered Liara to get off the floor, "He's a little eager to see some attention I think. He wasn't able to come on the last mission."

"This, thing, is going to help us inside a geth cruiser?" Jorge asked in disbelief, it was just an animal.

Trip looked at the massive human, sniffed his feet, then sat down and looked expectantly at him.

"I don't think Emile would appreciate you calling his pet a thing, not to even mention Trip himself." Jorge looked down at the beast, he could almost feel the accusing stare, practically demanding an apology.

"Um, I'm sorry?" The varren hopped to his feet and barked happily, tongue hanging out of his mouth stupidly. _Creature looks dumber than he is._

"Alright, I'll get Tali, you get ready." He turned his head to regard Benezia, "Ma'am."

She nodded in reply and moved off, to do what Jorge had no idea. He and the matriarch had spent a lot of time together when they were indoctrinated as Jorge was used as a sort of bodyguard to the matriarch, to make sure the job she was sent on went off without a hitch. There was still some sort of connection between the two, Benezia had been the one to meld with Jorge's unconscious mind, to see just what he was, as a result, she had seen everything about his life, and he had seen the whole millennia of hers.

He shook his head and asked one of the marines on duty where he could find Tali. The marine said he'd last seen her up by the armory. So Jorge went up to the CIC once again, and turned left and headed into the armory.

He entered to a strange sight, Garrus and Ashley were… kissing. "What the hell?"

Ashley spun around in Garrus' arms, staring at Jorge with wide eyes, "Uh, uh… you didn't see anything, ok?"

Jorge was too dumbstruck to offer a formal response, other than to gape, open mouthed behind his helmet at the couple. _An alien and a human, what the hell is going on?_

Finally Jorge managed to pull himself together and asked where Tali was. Garrus replied with a much better sense of control than his human companion, stating that she had been in here to gather Emile's damaged armor, and that she was in the cargo bay fixing it.

Jorge just dumbly nodded and headed for the cargo bay, he was still getting over the revelation of a human/alien relationship when a thought occurred to him. _Why the hell was Emile letting an alien touch his armor?_

He entered the cargo bay to find Tali was indeed bent over Emile's MJOLNIR armor, along with that krogan from earlier… Wrex?

"Keelah Wrex, hold the plates still! I'm trying to weld this bosh'tet together and you just keep shifting the plates around." The little quarian girl was screaming at the massive krogan. For a second, Jorge forgot that she was an alien, and just chuckled at the bravado shown by the small girl.

The two aliens crouching over the armor turned to consider the chuckling human, "You need something human?"

"Yeah, as a matter of fact I do. We'll be boarding a geth stealth cruiser in about half an hour, I need the geth expert to help me out." Tali quickly nodded and began setting her tools to the side.

"Right, anyone else coming along?" she asked as she led the way to the elevator.

"The lieutenant, Liara, and the animal." Jorge said quietly, his deep voice still managing to boom inside the small elevator.

"Okay, um, what weapons are you bringing? I mean, the videos I've seen of you, you always have that big machine gun, but that's Wrex's role on this ship." Jorge looked down at the quarian girl, he had been wondering that same thing, was there room on this ship for him? His role as a support man had already been taken, and competently too, even if Wrex was an alien.

Oblivious to the internal turmoil of the massive Spartan, Tali continued, "I mean, we don't really have a heavy weapons specialist. Emile has his grenade launcher, but that isn't really very useful against some of the bigger geth like colossi."

Jorge considered that, he did still have a spartan laser, along with several spare batteries in case there was no way to recharge them in time, not to mention a plasma cannon Jorge had been carrying around. It was a mounted plasma cannon straight from the super carrier Jorge had destroyed. The geth were working on replicating it, but were so far unsuccessful in their attempts. In fact the only thing the geth had been truly successful in were creating underpowered versions and recharging Jorge's cannon.

While he was still technically in a support role, he'd be more of a heavy weapons specialist, designed to take on enemy vehicles and overpowered enemies. At least now he had a role, maybe he could stay on, he wouldn't have to lose his way of life, nor would he have to leave his only remaining friend.

Half an hour later the Normandy was blasting over the snow covered landscape of Noveria, heading straight for the geth stealth cruiser's last coordinates. They arrived to find the ship taking off; it was just firing up its engines. Apparently they had found out the mission had failed.

Joker just activated the plasma cannons, two shots from each of the four cannons sliced right through the ships thrusters, disabling the starship, dropping it back to the ground.

In the cargo bay stood Jorge and the team he was taking with him. He was still unsure of the aliens on his group, but Trip had already won him over. The varren was unusually smart, with an almost uncanny sense of what any person was feeling and knew just how to behave around them.

"Alright, I'm going in first," Jorge's deep voice came over the comms, "follow me after fifteen seconds, I'll have an LZ cleared for you."

"Wait, an LZ? I thought we were just going to board the thing." Kaidan asked confusion clear in his voice.

"No, we're going to jump into a hole I'm gonna smash into their hull, get ready."

Jorge leaped from the cargo bay; unlike the others, he wasn't wearing an anti-grav pack. His one ton armored frame smashed right through the hull of the geth ship, and crushed several platforms aboard the ship.

As soon as he had landed on his feet, geth had downloaded their various programming into the platforms attached to hubs nearby. Jorge slid the plasma cannon from his back and scrapped the dozens of platforms charging him. The platforms designated to patrol the various corridors were equipped only with kinetic barriers, leaving them poorly under equipped to deal with Jorge and all his rage.

He finished off the last of the geth pouring down the corridor, and backhanded another platform that had been approaching from the flank, smashing it to pieces. He turned around just in time to see his teammates drop down from the Normandy. Trip looked incredibly uneasy floating down in his anti-grav pack, and it had taken all three of the others to calm him down during the drop.

As soon as they had all set their feet on the ground Jorge was quick to point the way. The Covenant tech was located near the center of the ship. The team Jorge had picked was quickly showing their worth.

Liara and Kaidan used their biotics to throw the geth into piles, easy targets for Jorge's plasma cannon. Tali was a death trap for any geth that got too close, and there wasn't a door she couldn't open. Trip was the jaws of death itself, any geth, at any position was in danger of falling to his razor sharp teath.

Their job was made easier as most of the geth had been deployed to stop Emile, and had failed horribly, leaving the ship, for the most part, empty. So it wasn't long before the team was on their way out, with Jorge hauling a massive crate slung over his back while Kaidan levitated a plasma battery with his biotics.

A half an hour after entering the ship, the team was leaping back into the Normandy's cargo bay, geth hot on their heels. Jorge dropped the crate then turned to the plasma battery Kaidan had brought, "Bring that over here."

Kaidan did, and Jorge quickly started pressing the glyphs keys on the top of the plasma battery. Soon the battery started to glow red, and Jorge threw it in the hole they had jumped out of.

Jorge keyed his comm., "Get us out of here!" The Normandy sped away as the overloaded plasma battery shot an EMP throughout the ship, including the containment of the reactors.

Miles away, the previous location of the geth cruiser was marked only by a mushroom cloud and an orange glow.

Jorge turned to regard his teammates, "Good work, in and out, clean." _Maybe this wouldn't be so bad._

**So that was chapter 19, whaddya think? Good, bad, stupid, clever, just okay? I need to know! I mean I guess I don't, but it would be better if you guys told me. Also, remember I need an idea as to what to do with Benezia. The next chapter will most likely just be more filler as I apply what I see in the reviews to the story. Oh and just so you guys know now, I don't plan on anymore Spartans, maybe a surviving elite or brute creating a merc band, or joining the employ of the Shadow Broker, who knows.**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	20. The Council Can Bite Me

**Aww, yeah. It is time for another update! I have reached twenty chapters, an achievement if I do say so myself, not to mention great readers who actually review my story. Hooray!**

**Okay, enough hooplah. I see plenty of votes for a Jorge Benezia pairing, a Borge, or a Jornezia. Okay, I won't try doing that again, their names do not fit together. Anyway, I'm kinda glad to see that, I actually had an idea for another crossover fic where Benezia or Aria or some older asari go exploring in their commando years and find Requiem, or halo, and end up traveling with the Chief or something. It's probably a stupid idea, but it just won't go away.**

**One person had a question regarding the ME2 timeline, chm01 asked what I was going to do with the characters during the two years between now and then. To answer your question, the team will go their separate ways, cept for maybe Jorge. Emile will kinda dismiss his team, tell them to get on with their lives, or some will request to go. Emile will personally be doing all the side missions of ME1 like hunting Cerberus cells, fighting batarian terrorists, killing Nassana's sister, you know, that stuff. I hope that answers your question.**

**Anyway, filler chapter, (wait, wasn't the last one filler too?) yes it was, you bastards get a double dose of filler where I address concerns some people had in the reviews. **

Covenant tech was tricky, the glyph like language covering the weapons made it difficult to understand what you were doing to it; combine that with a theoretical grasp of physics far beyond what she had been taught made Tali a very, very frustrated quarian.

"Bosh'tet! How does this thing even work!?" Tali screamed as she threw a deactivated plasma rifle across the lab, making Kaidan duck under it as Liara caught it with her biotics.

"Calm down Tali, according to Jorge and Emile the best human scientists of their universe couldn't figure these things out, and they had way more motivation than us." Kaidan tried to calm down the frustrated quarian. Tali sighed and nodded. She picked up another deactivated plasma rifle, and tried to get it open.

They had yet to successfully open one of the weapons without Jorge or Emile using their enhanced strength to pry the Covenant mineral metal off the weapon.

"Well, look at the bright side," Liara noted, "We have plenty of this new metal to work with." Indeed there was a large pile of bent plasma rifle casings or crate sides that had pried off through sheer Spartan force. Liara had already used some to test out the new silaris grade armor the Asari Republic came out with a month ago.

Silaris grade armor was designed to coat ships hulls and provide an extremely tough, durable, and heat resistant barrier between the ship and the weapon fired. It was created by crushing a tungsten alloy with mass effect fields, creating a super dense substance that was harder, tougher, and more durable than normal tungsten, not to mention there was more metal to have to be burned off in the case of GARDIAN lasers.

The Covenant mineral metal, as they had taken to calling it, was already more resilient to heat than any known alloys, and stronger and tougher than titanium. Most of all, however, was its exceptional acceptance of being super condensed via mass effect fields. The resulting metal was now coating Emile's newly repaired armor, which had been fixed much earlier than expected thanks to Jorge, and was soon to be coating Jorge's as well.

The two Spartans were the only people, other than Wrex who was after Jorge for the upgrade, who could actually walk around without feeling the extra two hundred pounds. Emile was already making notes in his logbook to go check out the crash sight of the super carrier and corvette Jorge had shown up in for more of the incredible metal, thinking he could maybe get two suits of MJOLNIR made out of the stuff.

"Aha! Success!" Tali cried as she managed to open the weapon. Instead of prying creases in the casing, Tali had pressed down on the smooth open top while pressing the trigger. As long as the rifle was dead, the process would work, and Tali found out why.

On the inside of the complex plasma weapon, lay an easily removable and replaceable plasma core. On the others, Jorge or Emile had ripped the casing off and damaged the core, making them think that the rifles must be rechargeable rather than have replaceable power sources.

Tali didn't think that made much sense though, why would you carry a recharge station, or have to stay close to one, for an extended battle, when you could easily carry three or four power cells and just replace them when they get burnt out. It was obvious that the plasma cells could easily be recharged, but the Normandy's only source of plasma capable power was tied up in the cannons.

Still, there were over twenty untouched plasma weapons in the second crate Jorge had brought back. Tali quickly ran her omnitool over the plasma core, trying to get a schematic drawn up for it; maybe they could be replicated. _Still not changing in my shotgun for this,_ Tali thought.

It had been two days since Noveria, and Emile was getting restless. He had transmitted his findings to the Council, including a copy of his and Sovereign's chat, and what he got in return was an order to wait. He was supposed to wait until they've reached a decision, when Emile could have taken care of the Saren problem already.

Benezia had informed him that the whole goal behind the rachni queen was to learn the location of the Mu relay. Emile didn't need the relay's coordinates or the relay at all. Slipspace was capable of getting them anywhere, provided they knew the coordinates, which they did. So instead of ambushing Saren at the Conduit, Emile was waiting for the Council's orders.

The only reason they had forbidden him to go, was to avoid a war with the Terminus Systems, _as if they could catch the Normandy anyway._ So Emile passed the time sparring with Jorge, and kept losing.

"You know, we could take a break if you're tired, or if you're about to collapse." Jorge told Emile. They had been sparring for the past five consecutive hours, and even Jorge was exhausted. Emile looked like he was about to collapse, he had only gotten out of surgery a day and a half ago. Most people in his position would be dead, but they were minor injuries to a Spartan.

Emile just nodded in response to the Spartan Two's suggestion, and sat down with a water bottle. After taking a couple of swigs, he finally asked Jorge a question that's been bugging him for the past two days.

"So what's with you and big blue?" Jorge's eyes snapped back to the smaller Spartan.

"Nothing," he replied curtly, "nothing at all."

Emile rolled his eyes as he responded, "Oh don't give me that shit Five, her eyes are on you whenever your eyes ain't on her. So sit down, and spill big man."

"It's… complicated, and none of your business punk." Jorge told him.

Emile arched an eyebrow at the giant, "It becomes my problem when it becomes a distraction. Either you tell me now, or I find out later anyways, I don't like secrets on my boat."

"Fine, but only because I have no doubt your surprisingly loyal team will find out and tell you anyway." Emile smiled at the big man's response for two different reasons. One, he was going to tell him, two, Jorge had accidentally just told him his team was loyal. It didn't matter that he already knew, it was just nice to be reminded that he actually had a group of people to identify with. It let him think for a brief time that he was more than a machine of war, than a tool to be discarded as soon as he was used up.

His line of thought was interrupted as Jorge began to speak, "She… she was the first person to find me in this new place. You know that asari mind meld thing?" Emile nodded his affirmation, "Well that was what she did to me. Saren had ordered her to find out what I was. Apparently they had already heard of you, so they had an idea, but I guess they wanted confirmation."

"She found my unconscious mind readily offering her everything, every memory, every emotion, every scar. Fortunately for me, she had already sealed off her mind from the indoctrinations effects, and was able to do the same for me."

"As she sealed away my mind, I was able to reach into her mind. One millennia of will power was overcome in seconds as I swallowed every memory I could. I learned everything there was to learn about her. I guess you could say we understand each other better than anyone in the universe, better than anyone else could."

As Jorge wrapped up his story, Emile was pondering what that meant, to really know someone, not just their memories as Emile had with Liara, but everything. The emotions that came with the memories, the scars hidden deep within the other persons psyche, were the most intimate thing one could share with another. Usually it was just through experiences shared as a pair that would bring the memories to surface, and with them, the emotions. But Jorge and Benezia had shared all of them, in a moment, and truly understood the scars, the emotions associated with memories.

"That doesn't mean you two have to act like school children with a crush on each other." Emile finally settled on. Jorge's reaction was comical. He impersonated a fish to the best of his ability and finally just told Emile to "shut the bloody hell up."

Emile chuckled at his friend's reaction and went up to his quarters, Trip hot on his heels, "Yeah we'll get you some nice steak after my shower, how's that sound boy?"

Trip barked his approval as they stepped into the unnecessarily spacious captain quarters. Emile was quick to get in the shower, but as soon as he got out he found a guest waiting for him, "Damn it Mattie! Can't you knock or somethin? I'm naked in here!"

Benezia looked up from Trip, who had welcomed her in with open arms, to see a soaked Emile with just a towel wrapped around his waist, "My apologies, I simply wished to speak with you. I will come back later."

"Nah, you don't have to, just, go outside while I change or somethin." Emile told her, he had a feeling she wanted to talk about Jorge.

As soon as Emile finally found some clothes, he called her back in, "I assume you wanted to talk about Jorge?"

"You are straight to the point, Commander. I find that favorable, I have always had to struggle with sly politicians and a constant game of words."

"You've picked up a few things, you didn't answer my question."

Benezia sighed, "Yes, that is part of the reason I came to speak with you. You are unusually perceptive, so I'm sure you have already noticed some…"

As Benezia struggled to find the right word, Emile jumped in, "You two act like little kids with crushes on each other."

Benezia looked shocked at Emile's declaration, "I hardly think that is the proper way to describe it…"

"But it is. You've never known someone like the way you know Jorge, and he's never had any prior experiences to tell him what it is he's feelin. That ain't to say you two are in love or somethin stupid, but I know you're attracted to him, he probably feels the same, judging by what he told me earlier."

For the first time since Benezia had become a matriarch, she was being treated as an equal. Every asari she comes across is always pining for her help, her advice, every other species who learns of her identity treat her like royalty. Now she is being advised, and she is not being treated as though she was a pompous queen.

"I… suppose you are right, Commander. Out of curiosity, what did he say about me earlier?"

"Ah, he just told me about how the two of you met, really romantic stuff by the way. 'Let's see if we can pry off this helmet and mind fuck the guy underneath!'" Benezia looked appalled at the description Emile gave, "And he told me about what happened in the melding, what the two of you saw of each other. Nothin really about you specifically, but it was in his eyes."

"What was in his eyes?"

"Confusion. That was really all I needed to know, he doesn't have a clue about what to do with you. Normally, with your extended knowledge of classified information, he would kill you, not even a second glance." Benezia looked worried, she was an extremely powerful biotic, but even she had her limits, and the giant down in the cargo bay exceeded hers, especially in his armor.

Emile noticed her worried look, and quickly dismissed it, "but he won't do that. My guess is, he'll avoid you until he figures this out, which will most likely be never, or until someone shows him what's goin on."

Benezia thought about this for a few moments, and finally asked, "Could you?"

Emile shook his head, "I've received all the proper education on psychology, so I can tell what's in his head, but I don't have any experience with what it is. I'm only able to even recognize it because it ain't me who's conflicted. If it was me, Jorge and me would be in reversed positions right now. It's all up to you because, whether Jorge likes it or not, you're the only person he trusts, other than me."

A small smile crept onto Benezia's face, "I thank you Commander; it is not often I receive council, especially from one as young as you."

"Well there is one more thing we need to talk about." Emile replied.

"That is?"

"Just what in the hell am I gonna do with you?"

The matriarch paused at that, what was she going to do now? She was, by all rights, a traitor to the Council and the Asari Republics, so returning to either place was out of the question. Before she could think much more on the subject, Emile continued his thinking.

"I mean, we got pretty much every angle on the team covered. Hell, this team is unstoppable and we don't _need_ either of you. You or Jorge. We could send you two on your way, I'm sure the Alliance will welcome Jorge with open arms, but you don't have that luxury do you? I know Jorge wants to stay on with me, and I'll let him, cause I owe him, and he's my friend. You, however, are neither one, but I will ask your opinion."

"I'd like to stay. I know you said I was neither your friend, nor your debtor, but I know a kind soul when I see one. You will welcome any who are redeemable a second chance."

Emile huffed his slight disagreement at that last bit, _certainly not the goddamn Covvies,_ but replied, "Yeah, I suppose. If you tell _**anyone**_… I'll fuckin kill you. I do gotta reputation to keep. Now let's get outta here, I promised Trip a steak and I think he's pissed he ain't got one yet."

As the asari, human, and the, slightly annoyed at the lack of attention, varren piled into the elevator, Benezia asked, "Why did you call me Mattie earlier?"

"It's a nickname, I call Wrex T-Wrex, Kaidan Elvis, Garrus Claws, hell I call your daughter Li, though I suppose that's just the first two letters of her name, kinda lazy by me. Mattie came from your title as matriarch I guess. It's just what came to mind as I saw you there."

They arrived in the mess hall at 1000 hours to find a poker game in progress.

"Shit, is it poker night already?" Emile asked Kaidan as he moved to the freezer to dig out a frozen nathak steak for Trip.

"Hell yeah, I thought you woulda remembered! It's just me, Jenkins, and Ashley right now, but I think Liara's comin later, at least that's what she told me."

"Well fuck, deal me in Elvis! What about you, Mattie?" Emile said as he tossed the five pound chunk of meat, purchased specifically for the varren, on the floor.

Benezia looked confused at what she was seeing in the game before her. Three people, soon to be four, were gambling their paychecks, for fun. The concept confused and worried her, _Liara's going to be playing this game?_

"Aw shit, you don't want to play ma'am, Emile always cleans us out." The baby faced marine, Jenkins piped up from the far side of the large table.

It seemed to ring true as Emile's unreadable expression caused the other players to buckle, and lose to a hand consisting of the two of hearts and the eight of spades, with no pairs showing up on the river.

Benezia continued to watch the game, Jenkins lost his three hundred credits fairly quickly, and was out even before Liara, Tali, and Wrex joined. Apparently poker, was popular game, even amongst non-humans.

Emile kept winning nearly every hand, his only competition came from Ashley who was far bolder than her companions in the face of Emile's hot streak. Garrus sat to her side, apparently content to let his girlfriend play while he watched.

"You want to know how he keeps winning?" rumbled an incredibly deep voice from behind her.

The matriarch turned to find Jorge in skin tight clothing that was undoubtedly the biggest set of clothes the ships fabricators could handle. She regarded him in silence for a few seconds as Emile's words took forefront in her mind, _you'll have to confront him about it eventually, but for now, just enjoy the fact he's willing to speak with you._

She nodded in confirmation to his question, and took a small amount of satisfaction from the tight smile that appeared on his face.

"Look at the animal." He said. Benezia looked to the varren, who had taken up a seat right behind Tali.

"What about Trip?" she asked, confused as to how the large reptile had anything to do with Emile winning.

"Emile and I are Spartans, we can read body language facial cues better than anyone, but we'll never be as good as an animal. It took a few trial and error runs, but Emile's figured out why his pet is always walking from person to person each hand."

Benezia looked at Jorge, he had moved very close to the matriarch so she was essentially looking straight up, and made her confusion clear on her face.

Jorge smirked a bit at her confusion, "Trip is an omega, granted a violent and massive omega, but an omega. In packs, the omega's job is to essentially keep peace with the rest of the pack. Trip is finding the one most distressed in his pack, the poker players, and trying to comfort them. Emile's cued in on Trip. He can tell who has a bad hand because the varren is inadvertently telling him."

Matriarch Benezia was impressed. Emile had found a way to read people, without even looking at them. All he had to do was let his pet do it for him, "Amazing."

"It's cheating is what it is." Jorge gruffly responded.

"Then why don't you do something about it?" she whispered back.

"I intend to," was all she got in response until a small slab of meat fell on the ground in front of her. Trip was on the meat in seconds, gnawing and biting and tearing it apart.

She looked over her shoulder at Jorge, only to find him gone. She looked around the room until she spotted him sitting down at Wrex's seat, the krogan having lost all his credits, and telling Kaidan to deal him in.

With the two Spartans in the game, it wasn't more than a half hour before they were the only two left. Each player had an equal amount of credits and the game could have gone on for another hour, but Emile made a rash decision, he went all in.

Emile had a flush, and was pretty sure he had Jorge beat, and he realized that Jorge had figured out his earlier system with Trip. So with a discreet hand signal, he called Trip over to him. Jorge saw that, and assumed the varren was simply doing what it was doing earlier, and with a pair of aces, he surely had whatever crap hand Emile had beaten.

They both showed their cards, and Emile left with over a thousand credits in his pocket, "Good boy! Double steak for you tomorrow!"

Emile woke up the next morning to a call from the Council. He quickly threw his Alliance uniform on and headed down to the comm. room.

"Whaddya mean we're not goin to Ilos!" Emile shouted at the holo-projector, "It's where Saren's goin! I can still beat him there! Set up a trap, ambush him when he's on the ground. Besides, what about that evidence I gave you about Sovereign?"

…

"Well fuck you too! I guess if you ain't gonna take me seriously, then why the fuck would I take you seriously!" Emile yelled back at the councilors, who all owed him their lives, after they just dismissed all the evidence Emile had thrown at them.

He marched to the cockpit, "Joker! Get us to Ilos, NOW!" If the Council got to ignore him, then it might as well be a two way street.

**Sorry that took far longer than necessary, I had deer hunting, start of the semester, and family stuff. Also the freaking Vikings lost to the Packers in the playoffs, which pissed me off. **

**Anyway, I hope this chapter came out well. I was a little bit concerned about the whole Benezia Emile conversation, but I think it came out okay. I really wanted to get the ball rolling on the Jorge Benezia pairing and I wanted to show another side of our hero. Tell me what you thought of it, and the poker game, I've had that idea in my head for a while now.**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	21. Finally, Some Action

**Well, I'm back, forgot to tell you last time, I'll be on vacation from the eighth to the twelfth, and I've just started college, so the updates will be fewer and farther between, sorry. Anyway, I hope this chapter goes over well, I write these author notes before I write the chapter, so, you know as much as I do about the story from this point on.**

**This chapter is going to have a different spin than what the game does, basically the differences start with Emile getting there first. He's gonna set up a trap, execute it, and chase Saren as he runs away in the same direction as the Conduit, and unfortunately save the Council's lives yet again.**

"We're arriving on Ilos in four hours. We'll be outnumbered, outgunned, hell, we got almost no chance, make your peace while we're on route, cause you may not get another chance." Emile told his team, all eight of them. They were all assembled in the comm. room, Pressly had told him the crew was behind him, one hundred percent, and he left the older man to tend to the crew.

Emile left the comm. room to the eight of them hoping that what he had just said about having no chance was a lie. His team was truly indomitable, and though he hadn't tested Benezia's lethality yet, he knew she would be a great boon to the team.

Of course there was one teammate who hadn't been at the briefing, "Geez Trip, you gonna get fat eatin all that steak man."

The only evidence that the varren had heard Emile was a slight pause in his continuous gnawing of the fleshy meal. Emile sighed and motioned for his pet to follow him. Trip picked up the mostly gone meat, and followed Emile to his quarters.

Elsewhere on the ship, Ashley and Garrus were sitting in their usual spots in the armory. Ashley was fiddling with the heatsink system they had installed on one of the captured Covenant plasma rifles, while Garrus was attempting to understand the spartan laser Jorge had brought with him.

Ashley had finally come to the realization that she couldn't do another damn thing to this weapon; it was as good as it would ever be. She thought about how she was going to pass the time, she still had three hours before she had to get ready. The female marine cast a sly glance at the frustrated turian sitting next to her.

"So, Garrus… you want to spar? Or maybe we can just have the rematch in my quarters right now." Garrus turned at the question; he couldn't deny his mind had gone along the same line ever since the briefing got out, but he didn't know how to bring it up without insulting her. Apparently, though, she had gone ahead and done it for him.

"You know… I might not make it to your quarters," he replied. As he did so, he sent a command on his omnitool, and the doors locked tight, no one would be entering the armory for the next few hours.

One floor down, Kaidan was working on a busted power relay in the life support room. It wasn't critical, and life support was still working at full capacity, Kaidan just needed something to distract him. If it wasn't for the fact Benezia was onboard, Kaidan would have already gone and found Liara, but as it was, the human didn't want to face the wrath of the matriarch if she found out about him and her daughter.

Like it or not, Kaidan was going to be spending his time with the young asari anyway as she came and found him, "You know, I am beginning to think you've been avoiding me."

"It's not like that Liara, it's just… I mean your mother is onboard. It makes me feel weird whenever I think about you."

Liara arched an eyebrow at the human, "What does my mother have to do with this?"

"I guess it's a human thing. Parents generally don't like it when their children are being romanced in front of them."

"Ah, so you feel as though my mother would disapprove? Then wouldn't that make this… forbidden? I thought humans liked that sort of thing."

"God you're sexy," Kaidan marveled. The beautiful asari in front of him never ceased to amaze. Sometimes it's her innocence, and other times it seems to be an instinct of hers to appeal to everything Kaidan loved.

Jorge was sitting in the port side observatory, which usually would serve as Ashley's quarters, but she was busy. In fact, Jorge could hear just how 'busy' she was, and Kaidan also had his 'hands tied.' To most people, the sound proof walls would be enough to block out every sound, but to Jorge's sensitive ears anything and everything in the surrounding compartments were audible.

He sighed as he tried to take his mind off of the just audible moans and grunts of the two couples and shifted on the bench that looked out onto the infinite blackness of slipspace. He had a lot to think about as they were headed to Ilos, he had no doubt he and Emile would be able to survive, it was what they were built for, but the others? They were in danger.

He thought about how, in just a short time, he was concerned that the aliens might die. He had spent the past twenty seven years fighting an alien conglomeration, and now he was fighting beside alien teammates. And that wasn't even mentioning a certain asari matriarch that, for some reason, meant more to him than the others.

The emotionally inexperienced Spartan wasn't quite sure what to make of that. It wasn't love was it? No, he was incapable of that. It was like Emile sometimes said; he forgot what he was sometimes.

His train of thought was derailed as the very woman he was thinking about entered the room, "I thought I might find you here."

Jorge turned to the asari, "Ma'am, I can leave if you need me to."

Benezia smiled at him, knowing what the root of that suggestion was, she made him nervous. "That will not be necessary Jorge, and please, call me Benezia, enough people call me ma'am, and I hardly think you need to."

Jorge paused, and finally nodded and turned back to the inky blackness of slipspace, he could still hear the two couples going at it. He didn't react, but he was very aware as Benezia moved to sit directly next to him.

"Usually one goes to the stars to think, what are you thinking about, Jorge?"

"About how things have changed for me, about the war back home, and about the war coming up," Jorge honestly replied.

"War has had a very large impact on your life; I suppose it has on mine as well. I spend so much time trying to stop the violence, but I suppose this upcoming war is unavoidable."

"This place isn't ready for a truly devastating war."

Benezia furrowed her brow, "Is there anyone ready for such a thing?"

Jorge huffed at her, the answer was quite obvious, "Me, it's the only reason I exist."

"There are things beyond war for you," Benezia worriedly replied to the massive human sitting to her left.

"No, there's not. I have no illusions about what I am, at least, not anymore. I'm a tool to be used, and cast aside once I've done my job. You want to know the two possible endings for me?"

Benezia was afraid of the answer, but she nodded anyway, "I will either die in combat, or I'll survive the countless wars and become unfit to fight anymore. In the case of the latter, I will be tossed aside, broken, beaten, and scarred in more ways than one, which will end in me putting a gun in my mouth. Oh, I'm sure I'll try for a while, but there's nothing out there for me, and I'll put myself out of everyone else's misery. I've made my peace with that."

"Oh but you're so much more than that, I know, I've seen it. You genuinely care about people who would rather call you a freak. You have a wonderful friendship with the rather eccentric commander sitting upstairs, and I can't imagine you having any trouble making more."

Jorge looked at the suddenly passionate alien next to him and began to wonder if she felt the same things he was feeling. Regardless of his thoughts, Jorge moved to rebuke the matriarch but she kept going right through him.

"If you can give so much, and never get any happiness in return, then I just might stop trying. What's the point if the most clear cut case of justice never receives the ending it deserves? Why would I try and prevent wars if it's the only thing keeping the most amazing person I've ever known alive?"

Benezia seemed to realize she was ranting, but she could definitely tell she had gotten through to Jorge. She smiled sheepishly in apology for her outburst, but a genuine smile from Jorge said there was no need. The two sat in silence, watching the stars for the next few minutes until Jorge finally said, "Looks like Liara finally tired Kaidan out."

Benezia then engaged in a very un-matriarchal like activity, she started laughing. Not a quiet laugh that an asari of her stature might be seen doing, but a full, hearty bout of laughter, the kind of laughter that jumped to everyone in the room as evidenced by Jorge joining her not a moment later.

Two hours later, the Normandy ripped through the dimensions, arriving in real space just over Ilos.

"Alright Joker, put her down by those eezo readings, I'm betting that's where the Conduit is." Emile ordered his ace pilot, "I don't want them to know the Normandy's here until it's too late."

He turned to the team assembled behind him. "First of all, lookin nice guys," he spoke in regards to the large white skulls painted on all but Benezia, Jorge and Tali's armor, Tali had a small red skull stitched to her left shoulder, "Secondly we got two objectives."

He brought up a hologram of the area with the Conduit, with a focus on the complex just outside the entrance to the tunnels leading to the Conduit, "First is obviously the Conduit, but in order to get in there, we need to hit the control room and open the gate so we can get to the conduit."

"Jenkins is leading a six marine team to secure the room, and open the path for us. Jenkins!" he called to the marine, "You get that program I sent you? You're gonna need it to access the controls."

When Jenkins nodded in the affirmative, Emile continued, "The rest of us are gonna set a trap for Saren at the Conduit. He's likely gonna come in with a lot of geth, so it's all gonna come down to an assassination. We'll cover Claws while he takes the shot, understood?"

The team gave Emile an affirmative, but Emile went and took Garrus aside anyway, "Listen, you're the best shot on this team, but your rifle ain't gonna cut it against Saren. You're only gonna get one shot, take him out with this."

Emile handed the turian a weapon that would simply bypass the kinetic barriers and prove too much for any personal plasma shields, a beam rifle. Garrus had read what information the two Spartans could give him on the deadly weapon. It wasn't a focused shot of plasma like most Covvie weapons, but rather a confined pulse laser. There was a way to overload the weapons shot, but it would result in the destruction of the weapon, this one was set for just a shot.

"I understand Commander, I won't fail you." Emile smiled at his turian friend's response, and clapped him on the shoulder.

"I know you won't Claws. So, how was your, um, _moment_ with Cheeks?"

To the turian's credit, he didn't bluster or show any sign of discomfort. He simply stood straighter, and told the Spartan that he was impressed with her 'flexibility.'

Emile chuckled as the team took the elevator down to the cargo bay. Jenkins and his team would be taking the shuttle, mostly because after they were to resist the geth, then retreat to the Normandy once they are sure Emile and his team were ready.

From the drivers seat of the warthog, Emile watched the shuttle taking off, hoping that the marines inside were going to make it back. He didn't pretend he was friends with all the marines on the ship, but he knew each of them personally.

Emile glanced to his right just in time to see Kaidan, who had taken lessons on how to drive tanks, pulling the grizzly up next to the hog, "You figure out the brakes on that thing, Elvis?"

He must have broadcasted this over the comms because both Jorge and Benezia gave a simultaneous "WHAT!" Emile laughed at the predicament his LT found himself in, Jorge practically pulling him from the seat, and Benezia trying to confirm whether or not Kaidan did in fact know where the brakes are.

After finally confirming that Kaidan was indeed licensed to drive the large tank, the two vehicles drove out the bay of the Normandy and landed in front of a stone gate. Emile gave the marine team five minutes before he was about to call in. He need not have worried as the stone wall slid into the floor, revealing the way.

"You should be clear Commander," Jenkins' voice came over the comm.

"Alright Jenkins, no heroics, clear?" Emile responded, a small amount of worry coming through. In Emile's opinion, the baby faced marine had potential. Don't let the face or the boyish charm fool you, Jenkins had seen battle and was as calm and cool under fire as any marine. The only reason he didn't have a spot on the team was the lack of any special abilities. The kid could shoot a rifle, but they already had Williams, and Ashley was motivated. She had seen the loss of her team and wanted vengeance, Jenkins just wanted to be heroic like he thought Emile was.

Pushing such thoughts aside, Emile led the little convoy down into the tunnels, searching for the Conduit. They hadn't gone more than a kilometer before they were stopped by strong kinetic barriers.

"Li, what are we lookin at here?" Emile asked as he climbed out of the warthog.

"It could just be a checkpoint. Look, there is an elevator, I suspect that on the other side is a way to deactivate them." The skulled Spartan nodded his head at her assessment.

"Okay, Li, Mattie, and Tali come with me. We're gonna check this out." The team headed into the elevator, everyone else staying behind to guard the vehicles.

As the elevator slid downwards they noticed the cavern they were going through. It was lined with cryo pods, thousands of them.

"This must have been the last stand for the prothean race, how tragic that their species was truly beaten by time, rather than the Reapers." Benezia pointed out. Emile could see through his magnified visor, all the inactive cryo pods. They were probably all full of living, breathing protheans at one point, but now they were full of dead, most likely rotted away, protheans.

"Maybe we can get answers about this place later, but for right now we gotta mission to do," Emile reminded them, especially Liara. He could see the disappointed look on her face as he basically told her to hold in her enthusiasm.

They arrived at their destination and found a VI. It was obviously badly damaged judging by the way its avatar flickered incoherently, "You are not prothean, yet you are not synthetic, this eventuality accounted for. You do not show any sign of indoctrination by the Reapers, yet you have come, which would indicate that the Reapers have returned."

"Yeah, that's wonderful, listen, we gotta trap to set, so can you let us get on with it?" Emile said flippantly, drawing an offended look from Liara who was wondering how this human could be so callous about working prothean technology.

"I do not have much time, coordinating these systems is continually degrading my coding, I must tell you all you will need to know now." Emile was going to sigh in frustration, he really didn't give a shit about the protheans; they're dead. Then he had an idea.

"What if I could transfer you to a storage device? You wouldn't degrade any further, and we could probably clean you up."

"Such a device to hold all of me would be too large for you to carry, so I fail to see how this is relevant."

"Just fuckin open the way, tell me when you're done, and I promise I'll save you."

"… it is done, now how…" the VI was interrupted as Emile jammed a small crystal chip into a slot that, while meant for something else, the chip fit into. Soon the end Emile was holding turned blue, indicating that the VI had been downloaded.

Emile turned and handed it to Liara, "Nerd out over it later, but keep it safe. We gotta mission to complete."

Jorge had spun the railgun on the grizzly to aim behind them. Emile and his team must have been too far underground to get the Normandy's message, the geth have arrived.

Trip seemed to understand what was going on as he was also looking behind them, growling. The varren always seemed more comfortable around Emile, but was amicable with anyone in his new pack. Right now the varren looked ready to spring, and was starting to make Kaidan nervous.

"Man, he seems like he senses them, like he thinks there close."

Jorge calmed Kaidan down, "It's more likely he's just sensing the rest of us on our guard, so he gets on his guard too. Just calm down and he'll calm down."

Any further conversation regarding the varren riding in the grizzly was cut off as Emile and his team came out of the elevator just as the kinetic barriers dropped, "Status Five!"

"We've got bloody machines landing outside right now, Jenkins has his team ready to engage, but have not made contact yet. I can see you were successful."

Emile just nodded as he hopped in the warthog and floored it, barley giving Liara and Tali enough time to slide into their respective seats. Benezia had already climbed into the grizzly by the time Kaidan floored it to chase after Emile.

"Commander, I've established an omnitool uplink with Virgil, the prothean VI," Liara said from the right side passenger seat.

"I thought I told you to save that for later," the Spartan shot back.

"Just hear me out. Virgil has told me what the Conduit is. You remember the relay model on the Presidium?" Emile nodded as he took a sharp turn around the corner, "Well it's actually the receiving relay for the Conduit. The Conduit is a back door into the Citadel. Apparently the protheans created it so that they could sabotage the Citadel from the Reapers. That's why Saren needs it; Sovereign needs access to the Citadel to bring the rest of the Reapers."

"Uh, ok, more motivation I guess." Emile struggled to actually concentrate on what Liara was saying as he was focusing on getting to the Conduit as fast as possible.

He was well founded in his worry. While Saren had not accessed the tunnels yet, his geth were assaulting the control room.

"Ramirez, cover Jesse! Grayson's been hit, he needs medical attention. Vega, you meathead get back in cover! Thomas, Rachel, how you guys doing back there?" Jenkins screamed orders to his six man team as the geth poured in to the lower room.

Four of the marines Jenkins was leading had taken cover amongst the stone pillars throughout the ruins, while a sniper and heavy weapons specialist took out geth from the raised control room.

They had been holding them off for the past twenty minutes, ever since the fleet had shown up in orbit. They were doing pretty well against the assorted troopers the geth were sending, but soon the geth realized they weren't getting it done, so they sent in the big ones.

Right now, one of the newer elite geth had put a round in Private Grayson's right shoulder. Jesse, the field medic, was treating his wound while the newest recruit to the Normandy, Vega, was making a daring stand with his shotgun, standing in front of the massive wave of geth, blasting them away with his Katana shotgun.

"Damn it Vega! Get back in cover!... damn it." Jenkins swore as he sprinted to Vega's side, firing bursts into the heads of geth with his Avenger assault rifle.

"I knew you'd make it Sarge!" Vega enthusiastically called out over the roar of their weapons.

"Damn it Vega!" BANG! "duck," Jenkins whipped out his pistol and shot over the bent over form of the private, in to the face of a closing geth trooper.

"Vega, what did the commander say about heroics?" Jenkins continued to yell over the sound of their roaring weapons.

"Man, he was talkin to you, you're loco!" Vega responded as he blasted away a particularly close geth.

Any further talking was disrupted as the massive form of a geth prime shouldered its way into the battlefield. Jenkins shoved Vega into cover as the massive geth started hammering their position with massive mass accelerator rounds.

"Damn! Could you imagine if we had to face the ones with plasma tech?" Vega asked as Jenkins leaned out of cover and put whole thermal clip into the monsters kinetic barriers.

"We'd likely be dead already!" Jenkins shouted back as the prime's gun let out another roaring sound.

Jenkins keyed his comm. as he handed Vega his assault rifle, "Jesse!? Thomas!? Rachel!? Grayson!? Where are you guys at?"

"Sergeant, it's Jesse, Grayson's gone, nothing I could do. Vega's stunt seems to have bought us some time though. I'll make my way to you."

"Negative Corporal, stay where you're at. JESSE! STAY THERE!" Jenkins shouted in vain as the female marine moved out of cover only to have her head removed from her body by a geth sniper.

Jenkins shouldered his own sniper and wasted the geth, the Mantis driving a round through its flashlight like face.

"I-I'm sorry Sarge, I got her killed!" Vega said, guilt running thick in his voice.

"No you didn't, the geth got her killed, let's get some payback huh?" Jenkins said, confidence building with every word. Emile had told him once; there were three kinds of commanders: the ones who take the death of their subordinates too hard, the ones who find purpose in the ones still alive, and assholes who don't care. Apparently Jenkins was the second kind, he found his purpose in the dirt streaked face of Vega, in the chattering of Rachel as she points out targets for Thomas, he was going to get them out of there.

Unfortunately, they couldn't take the back door out to the shuttle until Emile had his trap set, and the call hadn't come in yet. Fate smiled upon the four then, as Emile's voice rang through the comms, "We're in position Jenkins, fall out, get to the Normandy. Tell Joker he has full permission to kick geth ass once he's off the ground."

"Aye, sir. You heard the man! Fall back! Get the FUCK outta here!" Jenkins yelled at the rest of his team.

They took turns covering each other as they ran down the narrow hole in the rocks, whose only purpose was as a maintenance walkway. Soon they burst from the vine covered entrance and quickly piled into the dropship.

As the engines fired up for take off, several geth troopers poured out of the same hole, but the GARDIAN lasers blasted them with ease. Soon the shuttle was streaking back to the Normandy's position.

**Well whaddya think? I brought Jenkins back, and gave a new origin for Vega. Cool? Not cool? If you can't tell, I plan on Jenkins being a bigger factor in the coming series. Maybe not as a part of Emile's team, but rather as another team's leader, one that every now and then, intersects with Emile's. maybe it's a good idea, maybe it's stupid, that's what you're here for.**

**Finally, to Guest, you know who you are, the one that nitpicks over the details, I'm not changing Emile's stats. They're staying the same. You are obviously better read on the Halo verse than I am, cause I only read fanfiction. Never read one book, sorry, and I probably never will. And pertaining to Emile's thyroid implant that suppresses his sex drive, that's just what it does, it **_**suppresses**_** it. Not kill it. Besides I have plans for how that little problem is going to disappear.**

**I hope that makes everyone a little bit happy, but as long as I keep getting the usual positive reviews, I'm not gonna change the story for one reader who doesn't have an account. Sorry if that didn't make any sense to everyone else reading, but he/she knows who he/she is.**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	22. Emile and Co Go Camping

**Phew! I'm back from Mexico, finally. So, I'm getting close to the end of Mass Effect 1, probably two, maybe three chapters to the official end of the main story line. Should I end this story, and then make a bunch of one shots to fill the two year gap, should I ignore the gap, or should I just keep going with this one story?**

**I've received a shitload of positive remarks about Jenkins and his squad. I've gotta say, I'm surprised, I figured maybe a couple people would be okay with that, mostly since Jenkins has never been a prominent character anywhere else. I guess you guys just want to see a little more Jenkins.**

**This chapter is the ambush and most likely the battle of the Citadel, we'll see if I get sidetracked.**

"Thirty contacts Joker!" Pressly shouted from his post into the comms.

"Yeah, thanks for the update baldy!" Joker yelled back.

The Normandy had just picked up Jenkins shuttle and blasted from the jungle canopy Emile had ordered them to hide under. The ambush was set, and the geth had sent a surprisingly small force to secure the Conduit; that was, until Jenkins squad informed the flyboy what the Conduit was.

Joker knew that he had to destroy the fleet above Ilos before he could worry about getting to the Citadel though. If he couldn't protect Emile, then the geth Saren would pour through the Conduit would overrun the Citadel anyway.

Any further thinking was cut short as Joker lined the sights up on the first geth cruiser. The fleet above Ilos consisted of five dreadnaughts, ten cruisers, and fifteen frigates. _Those dreadnaughts are givin off CRAZY power sigs,_ Joker thought as he looked at the navigation data from Pressly's station.

It was true, though they retained the typical insect like shape of normal geth vessels; the nearest dreadnaught was lined strange spikes, almost like the tentacles on Sovereign.

Joker let loose the mass driver round, pounding the cruisers kinetic barriers and crippling the vessel. As the Normandy shot by, a splash of plasma lanced out from the human vessel's wings and finished off the drifting geth ship.

Joker veered away from the bulk of the geth fleet, causing a wolf pack of five geth frigates to try and chase him down, try.

Joker punched the slipspace engines, trying something that the engine was only rated for on paper, and reappeared directly behind the wolf pack, plasma cannons roaring with absolute fury.

"Joker! You fuckin idiot! What the hell were you thinking?! Precision jumps is difficult with eezo engines, let alone whatever the fuck this thing is down here!" _Eesh, Adams sounds pissed at me._

The Normandy cut its main thrusters, turned upside down, nose pointing back at the fleet, and reengaged thrusters, blasting towards a cluster of geth ships. _Let's see what that special round can do…_

The mass driver glowed blue with energy as the magnetic rails gathered power, and flashed white as it flung a one ton round that appeared to have a fragmented surface. Five hundred meters from the cruiser's kinetic barriers, a magnetic pulse separated the dozen fragments that made up the round fired from the Normandy. Eezo flooded the pieces, causing their mass to change.

What struck the geth ship were a dozen five hundred pound slugs, rather than one, one ton slug, or even a dozen 170 pound slugs. The first five splashed harmlessly against the kinetic barriers; however the sixth managed to punch through. When the devastating weapon was through, the cruiser's explosion devastated one of its escort frigates.

"WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!" Joker screamed as he watched the devastation, he calmed himself enough to focus his devastating arsenal upon the unfortunate geth frigates.

_This is gonna be a freakin cake walk man, Emile better recommend me for a medal, I prefer gold,_ Joker thought as he chased down a fleeing frigate. His self adulation was cut short as a massage barrage of mass accelerator rounds impacted the Normandy.

"Kinetic barriers at 50 percent, aren't you s'pose to be avoiding the enemy's fire?" the tactical officer barked from her seat just behind Joker.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it." _Great, now I look like a fool._

The Normandy spun away from another barrage, and repositioned itself, lining up a mass driver shot on the closest dreadnaught. As expected, the round just bounced off the incredibly strong kinetic barriers, but they weren't prepared for the response.

The massive insect-like ship surged forward and positioned its spike like tentacles to point at the diminutive human vessel. Joker saw what was coming miles away, and easily dodged the blue blast, "What the hell was that thing Sarah?!"

The tactical officer checked the readings, then checked them twice, "I-I think it was a molten iron slug, sir."

Joker's brow furrowed as he lined up a targeting solution on one of the escort cruisers, "What? Why not just use as mass accelerator round, or better yet, why not some stripped plasma tech?"

The Normandy soared past the still hot debris of the cruiser they had just targeted, chasing down three frigates trying to circle around on the Alliance frigate, "I don't think their ships have the power capabilities to power a plasma cannon, and the molten iron slug is the closest thing they have."

Joker shrugged as he dusted the last of the frigates, he still had the massive dreadnaughts and four escort cruisers to deal with, _okay, time to earn that medal._

The Normandy had already taken a beating, kinetic barriers were down to 30 percent, the hull was in desperate need of a repaint, and they only had five mass driver rounds left, one was the specialty round. Power levels were fluctuating across the plasma cannons, causing them to be touchy at best, unreliable at worst.

Joker's mind raced to find a possible solution to the overwhelming situation he found himself in. He poured over every strategic lesson he ever learned, every book he ever read, every… "briefing I barely listened to."

Joker took all energy from weapons and surged the thrusters. He darted around like a trapped rat in a cage as he patiently watched three dreadnaughts close in around him. It appeared that they remembered he could easily slip out of this with the slipspace drive because they kept the rest of the ships apart in case he tried to come in from behind.

_Fortunately, I have no intention of going anywhere,_ Joker thought as he keyed the coordinates for the slipspace drive. This time he had no intention of a precision jump, and he wasn't leaving his coordinates at all.

A giant blue-black slipspace portal opened up around the Normandy, engulfing the front halves of each dreadnaught closing in, and closed, leaving just the Normandy, in the exact same place it was before.

"Joker, that wa-"

"I know Adams, stupid, reckless, endangering of everyone on board."

"Actually I was just gonna tell you that was brilliant."

Joker blinked, "Uh, thanks, I guess."

"And if you EVER, do anything like that again I will personally break every bone in your body!"

"If walking doesn't do that first old man," Joker shot back over the comms. He turned the Normandy to the remaining ships. While the initial portal swallowed half the three dreadnaughts, the shockwave had disabled the remaining ships, not even kinetic barriers.

Joker locked on each ship and fired a disruptor torpedo for each. The torpedoes slammed through the hull of each ship and destabilized their core, incinerating the wrecks.

"Okay, Adams, the slipspace drive ready?" Joker called throughout the ship, he received an affirmative, "Okay then listen up, we'll be at the Citadel in seven hours. Jenkins and his team have informed XO Pressly and I that an invasion fleet is most likely en-route. Get those micro factories up and running, and get this ship back into shape for another firefight."

Joker looked over his shoulder, caught a nod from Pressly, and punched in the Citadels coordinates, "You think we should warn the Alliance fleet?"

Pressly whispered through the comms, "Already on it. Hackett said Fifth Fleet should be there about the same time as us."

Three hours after the battle in orbit had reached its conclusion, Emile and his team were set and waiting to ambush Saren, "How long is this fucker gonna take!? For the villain to be late to his own master plan, that's just rude."

"Patience, Four, patience," Jorge whispered back in the comms from his position. He, Emile and Wrex had positioned themselves in the greenery, various shrubs and bushes, on either side of the ramp leading up to the currently inactive Conduit.

"Don't go all sensei on me, old man. Even Trip is havin a hard time with all this waitin." The varren, as if to accentuate Emile's point, gave a low whine as he rested his gigantic mouth upon his front paws.

"Shut up, both of ya, do you want Saren to hear us?" Wrex grumbled as he shifted under the vines covering his body, ready to be thrown off to reveal the deadly krogan in a heart beat. From his vantage point, Wrex was able to see the two visors slowly twist in their cover to stare at Wrex.

"Loathe though I am to admit this, but Wrex is right," Garrus whispered over the comms. The whisper was pointless as he was well over a half mile away from the kill box. He and Tali had set up in the grizzly, Tali manned the gun while Garrus lay across the top of the large tank, sniper in hand.

"Garrus, this is a battle you don't want to get into," Ashley spoke quietly into her headset, she, Kaidan, and Liara were positioned by the warthog, which was hidden behind a fallen stone column. The warthog was to be used as the mechanized support, the railgun on the grizzly was artillery, and Benezia, Trip, Jorge, Wrex, and Emile were ground crew.

Garrus conceded the point and continued to aim his regular, ballistic sniper rifle at the ramp leading to the Conduit. It wasn't more than fifteen minutes of silence before something popped up, "Guys, we got contact, about a thousand!"

While Garrus might have exaggerated the count, he wasn't far off. Three dropships, each loaded with fifty troopers, came out of the ramp first. Following were fifteen armatures, all with their necks down, seemingly running. Obviously in their regular deployment state, the giant machines were too slow to get into position.

"Well that ain't somethin you see everyday," Emile commented on the irregular sight, "remember, don't fire until we see Saren!"

While Emile was receiving a group of hushed "copies" as he continued to watch more dropships pile into the room. Obviously the corridors were just big enough to squeeze them in, but too large for them to come in side by side. Emile kept count, but was beginning to get nervous.

Fifteen dropships in total, which meant a several hundred, if not a thousand of geth of various classes, and the colossi that had followed the armatures in, six of them, were spread out over some hills that lead towards the Conduit. All in all, the team was outnumbered; hundreds to one, and Saren had yet to show up.

Emile had to hold Trip still as the varren just wanted to leap up and start sprinting towards the geth. He managed to keep everyone calm as a column of geth troopers was getting… uncomfortably close, "If we don't see Saren in the next thirty seconds, open fire."

"No need boss, look who finally joined the party," Garrus muttered into his headset as he watched the turian spectre float in on his personal shuttle board.

"Wait till he gets closer, Claws. We can't have that beam dissipating 'fore it hits him." Garrus uselessly nodded as he watched Saren arrogantly look over his forces spread out over the valley before him.

Down in the bushes, Emile watched the geth continually get closer. Ten meters, five, two… "ATTACK!"

Emile leapt from the bushes and punched the lead geth, a destroyer, pushing his fist through the chest armor, and wrapped his fingers around the 'spinal cord'.

As he ripped the cord out through the big geth's chest, Jorge had leapt and landed on an unfortunate trooper and loosed a spray of plasma into the nearest grouping of geth, turning them to molten slag.

Wrex, in the meantime, had bull rushed a juggernaut. The towering machine was usually more than a match for three krogan at a time in close quarters, but Wrex was no average krogan. The reptile's biotics flared as his mechanically enhanced speed peaked at twenty five miles per hour. Suddenly, Wrex disappeared, and reappeared in a bright blue flash, a foot inside the geth's armor, flinging the machined back, dead.

Trip had already rushed past his skulled master, and was ripping the leg off of a nearby shock trooper whilst tripping another platform with his tail. Despite the varren's ferocity and deadliness, he was overlooked as the three commandoes, in the mind of the geth, demanded their full attention. So the varren was allowed to dart through the throng of geth, taking any he chose, relatively unimpeded.

THUD…BANG! Emile didn't need to look to know what had just happened, the grizzly was being put into action. Despite his lack of actively looking for the results, the colossi exploding in the distance was hard to miss.

Emile and his three man, one varren, frontline team found themselves with a unique advantage. They were to close, to deep in the geths' front lines, for the machines to effectively shoot at them, meaning it was a close quarter's brawl. The poor machines didn't stand a chance in close quarters, not even the elite platforms, the team was fighting with their backs to the wall and they loved it.

The skulled Spartan was worried about snipers from atop a distant hill; it was possible to hit a target from that far, until a massive shimmering blue barrier spread over their heads. After blasting an elite geth with his shotgun, Emile stole a glance behind him to see Matriarch Benezia in all her glory. Her left hand in the air, supporting the barrier as her right hand thrust forward to cast a crushing singularity _inside_ a geth prime that had been bearing down on Jorge.

Emile arched an impressed eyebrow inside his helmet as he turned to slice the spinal cord of another platform with his kukri. He had been fighting with his kukri in his left hand, shotgun in his right. A difficult position for a novice, but Emile moved with fluid grace as he fired, moved his hand to the pump, flicked his wrist, and brought his hand back to the trigger.

Whenever anyone on the frontline needed a break to reload, rest, or get their bearings, they jumped out of the fray, and Liara covered them with biotic blasts while Benezia took the whole of the biotic dome the team resided in. Well, almost all the team.

"WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!" Kaidan screamed as he plowed over another geth prime, there were a dozen of the buggers spread out through the battlefield. The hog had large metal plates welded onto the sides, and they were proving their worth as Kaidan could hear rounds pinging off the metal plates covering the driver's side window. Even Ashley had a sort of cage covering her on the gauss cannon.

"God, will you stop yelling that?!" Ashley yelled at her driver, "On your left, an armature, hold this rig steady so I can get a shot!" One disadvantage the plates did hold, was the lack of peripheral vision, the lieutenant had to depend on his gunnery chief to tell him where the targets were.

BOOM! The armature shuddered as the metal slug ripped a hole through its chasse. The warthog charged on, weaving through the hills, working in tandem with the grizzly perched on a taller hill next to the massive body of the Conduit. The warthog drew the fire of the more powerful weapons, keeping the geth from breaking the biotic dome Benezia, and after they had dropped Liara off from the first run, her daughter held, letting the more powerful gun of the grizzly to simply decimate the enemies artillery while the warthog continuously thinned the ranks of the geth ground forces.

Garrus lay across the hood of the grizzly, never taking the scope of his beam rifle off of Saren. He kept tabs through the comms on the battle below, he knew they needed sniper support, or the two asari would tire out too quickly, and the biotic dome would fall, leading the team below to their doom, but it was too damn important that he don't reveal his position to Saren, they couldn't risk him backing off and letting numbers overwhelm the team.

Emile had managed to scavenge plenty of thermal clips from the geth he killed, but he had no time to reload his shotgun. None of the three commandoes crushing the geth up front could take a break and force Liara or Benezia to break their concentration from the dome.

Jorge's plasma cannon had long since been depleted; instead he had used his incredible strength to warp a handhold in the tough Covenant metal halfway across the gun's length. He used the cannon now to push back lines of geth, allowing him to spin his exotic flail, a geth prime's head still connected to the spine, and use its curiously large weight to smash smaller geth to pieces.

Wrex was using the near infinite ammo of Dragon's Breath to shred nearby geth, wielding the massive gun one handed as the current distance negated any need for accuracy, and used his plasma shield to slice, bash, or push away any platform that got too close for comfort. In short, the krogan was having the best time of his life. He may die soon, but it was going to be one hell of a death!

Emile had his shotgun resting on his back as he wielded his kukri like a short sword, which, to anyone but a Spartan, it was. The durable titanium blade danced around the slow, cumbersome machines and cut important cables, slashed servos, and drove through processers. It really found its niche fighting the elite geth. They may be stronger than any geth of their size, but the synthetic muscle tissue was easier to damage, and as a whole, easier to disable.

From Tali's position, she could see the entire battlefield as she manned the massive railgun atop the grizzly. Things, at first glance, looked bleak, but as you began to consider what was happening, the team was actually gaining the upper hand in the fight. They were still overwhelmingly outnumbered, still about a hundred to one, but in close quarters, at the chokepoint, the geth could hold all the numbers advantage they wanted, nothing was getting past Emile and his ground crew. And even though the asari's biotic barriers were beginning to wane in power, the cliff of bodies made by the three giants in the front provided ample cover.

Out past the current zone of hand to hand battle, there were great swaths cut through the geth lines about one warthog wide. As if to accentuate the point, another low boom resounded through the valley, and a bright flash signaled the demise of the last armature on the field. Tali lined up the railgun, THUD…BANG!

The blue streak ended in an intense globe of white fire as the last colossus, and any geth standing within twenty feet, succumbed to the massive firepower and intense heat. Some of the troopers were actually turned into molten puddles, as well as a good portion of the colossus.

Tali looked down at the holographic display, and was a little surprised at the readout. _We've been fighting for two hours!?_ _And I've only got two shots left!_

Garrus would have been surprised by the time, but for a different reason. Staring at Saren sit three kilometers away, looking on with arrogance as the battle unfolded beneath him.

_No, not arrogance… Spirits he's getting frustrated! Okay, hold it together, he'll come charging in soon._

Sure enough, Saren brought his biotics to life just as he watched the biotic dome Emile and the others were hiding under, come crashing down.

Emile whipped his head back to look at the two asari behind the line he, Jorge, and Wrex had made, "Mattie! Li! You guys alright!?"

Liara looked up from her position kneeling on the ground, and gave him a thumbs up. The mother/daughter duo might have overwhelmed their biotics, but they were alright.

Emile was about to turn back to the fighting when he felt a disembodied force slam into him. He fell forward a few steps but kept his footing. He didn't have to look to know it was Saren, _c'mon Claws, take the shot!_

The Spartan whirled around to look his fellow spectre in the eye, "That all you got, Snow White?"

While Saren didn't understand the reference, it didn't take a genius to figure out its derogatory intentions. The pale turian opened his mouth, undoubtedly to begin a ridiculous monologue, but never got a breath out as a blue beam of energy slammed into his chest…

**Wow, I take forever to write this chapter, and I leave an unsatisfying cliffhanger? I'm such a douche. Anyway, like I said, this chapter took forever for me to write. I just got back from vacation and it took me a while to get back into the writing groove, not to mention, I kinda worked myself into a corner in the previous chapters. I wanted the story to be different from the game, but I wasn't sure how to write the ambush sequence. I won't tell you what's gonna happen to Saren as the shot hits him, but it should be obvious. Freakin KasumiCain givin away the whole storyline, jeez. **

**Out of the blue, someone emailed my fanfiction account about fanart for this story. I'm a horrible artist, I can barely make a recognizable stick figure. So **_**I**_** won't be doing any, you can, hell I'll probably tell you guys about it in this story, but hell if I'm gonna do anything.**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	23. Aw God Damnit! I Saved the Council Again

**Hey guys, I'm back with another chapter. I know I didn't get as far as I wanted to last chapter, but that's because I'm a quote, unquote, lazy piece of shit. Hopefully I'll actually make some headway with this chapter rather than just stalling while I come up with ideas.**

**Forget the rest, has brought up some questions about the Normandy, mostly the plasma cannons and energy shields. For the energy shields part, I don't think I ever said that the Normandy had them, cause it doesn't. Now as for the plasma cannons, he/she mentioned that the UNSC had been trying to reproduce Covenant plasma tech for close to 30 years with no success, he/she is correct. The reason, I think, the Citadel is able to, is because they are not at war, their resources are practically limitless, and it isn't just humans trying to figure it out. I feel like the collaboration of dozens of different types of minds would be able to figure it out. Plus the UNSC would most likely rather spend their resources on weapons they know will work, like MAC's and bullets, but that's just my opinion.**

**Okay, now that I'm done with that, enjoy this chapter.**

Saren was getting frustrated. Sovereign and the geth fleet would be there in mere minutes, yet this infernal human and his team of lesser species kept his army away from the Conduit!

Finally he had had enough, and he set his shuttle board forward. Biotic energy flashed in his right fist, more than any other living being could possibly muster, and threw it in the form of a biotic warp at the human who had caused him so much pain, so much time, and so many of his followers. Benezia and the other human, traitors! Both of them, but what was he to expect from a non-turian?

Saren watched with satisfaction as the blue ball of dark energy slammed into the darkly armored human. Satisfaction turned to rage as the human was only knocked back from the blow. Granted, the point of a warp was to wreck the armor of the target, but that much energy should have tossed any other assailant. The fact the humans three inch titanium battle plating was relatively unharmed from the assault only added to the anger Saren was feeling.

"That all you got, Snow White!?" the insolent human had the gall to yell at the only hope the organic race had. Didn't he realize that an alliance with the Reapers was the only hope? Of course he didn't, he was a lesser being.

Saren opened his mouth to put the human back in his place when a blue beam slammed into his chest.

The former spectre was knowledgeable on what weapon that was just used on him, but he also knew the beam was far too powerful to be the weapons he was familiar with. It had overloaded the plasma shields he had installed on his combat harness like they weren't even there. And the HEAT! Saren's flesh was burning!

_Wait, I'm literally BURNING!_ Saren screamed in the recesses of his mind as he watched his flesh burn away in golden flakes. He looked down to his hands, shock filled his system as he saw the flesh melt away on his hands, only to reveal bladed, and serrated fingers. Each finger split in two to look more like a human's hands, if said human had seven inch long fingers that were razor sharp and made out of indestructible metal.

Saren was able to glance at his chest, and saw searing, red hot metal plate covering his chest. Somehow, Saren knew that his internal organs had already been cooked away, and that his entire body now looked like a turian version of the synthetics he commanded.

He suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of calm wash over him; he heard Sovereign's guiding voice comfort him, _**GET TO THE CONDUIT, BEGIN YOUR ASCENSION!**_

"Of course, Nazara," _Nazara? I've never called it that._ Alas, Saren's body was not his own, and his mind wasn't his for much longer. The turian looked to the human and his squad, but instead of seeing the team, all he saw was red lines of code, and his full and final torture was brought to an end as the cybernetics in his brain simply melted it away. All that was left was a mass effect powered link to the Reaper Sovereign, allowing the massive ship to control the battle plated body.

Sovereign had, in fact, planned on Emile and his team to be able to kill the organic parts of Saren, and had begun to further the implants of his puppet, creating a virtual, walking battle tank. The former spectre had had no idea that just inches beneath his skin lay a three inch thick plate of the very same metal all Reapers were made out of. A completely artificial material made almost exclusively in the building of the Reapers, it was extremely heat resistant, four times more dense than the silaris grade armor made by the asari, and twenty times stronger than titanium.

Running underneath the armor plates was the same form of synthetic muscle tissue Sovereign had allowed to the geth to advance to, making it capable of throwing a skycar like a shot-put. In the forearms of the turian like machine, were a set of interchangeable weapons. The blade like hands could be pulled in to be replaced with a shotgun on the right arm, on the left, a high powered rifle like extension.

In the middle of the chest plate was a whole, half way burnt through, and it was still glowing red. This, combined with the separation between the chest and head plates, were the only weaknesses the Reaper controlled synthetic truly had.

It turned its glowing red eyes on the shocked human standing before it, "**I AM SOVEREIGN, I AM YOUR SALVATION THROUGH DESTRUCTION; YOU CANNOT STOP ME!**"

Emile shook himself out of his shock and managed to respond with his usual wit, "FUCK YOU!" BOOM!

The buckshot bounced off the incredible armor, but not before it left several dents on the monsters chest plate.

The machine responded by folding in its right hand and firing an equally powerful shotgun blast, dropping the Spartan's shields. Emile fired off another blast from his shotgun and rolled away before the robot could respond with another shot.

Emile rose from behind the twisted metal of what was once a geth prime to see that the machine wasn't even paying attention to him, and simply making a dash to the Conduit.

"EVERYONE, LET'S GO!" Emile roared over the comms.

Jorge swung his makeshift flail, bringing the fifty pound armored head of a geth prime smashing into the head of an approaching destroyer. The massive Spartan didn't even bother checking to see if it killed the machine, but rather turned to the Conduit. As he sprinted after the mechanized threat, he noticed the grizzly was making a mad dash to the same spot, and the tell tale whine of an engine told the grizzled veteran that the warthog was fast approaching on his six.

Emile and Wrex were at the front of the charge, Jorge had both the asari over his shoulder, Trip had been called in by shrill whistle Emile had installed on his armor, and the two vehicles brought up the rear.

As the grizzly caught up with Jorge, he leaped to its roof, tossed the two asari in, and dropped down right behind Garrus.

"While I appreciate you carrying me Jorge, I detest the way you manhandled us," Benezia panted, still a little out of breath from the massive biotic effort she and her daughter had made earlier. Both she and Liara had crawled to the back to allow the massive human to drop in.

"Yeah, well, I can't say I'm too terribly sorry I just saved both your liv- OOPH! Trip! How you doing?" The varren just panted, obviously having tired himself out from earlier. He was covered in the white hydraulic fluid of the geth, and still had some wires and machinery stuck in between his teeth. Most alarming, however, was the large gash running along his left hind leg.

Liara was the first to notice the varren bleeding its dark orange blood over the floor, "Goddess, Trip! Uh, does anyone know if medigel work on varren?"

Garrus, still angry at his failure with the assassination shot on Saren, snapped at her, "You really think anyone has ever tried!?"

"Calm down, Vakarian! Keep on Kaidan's six and get us to the Conduit!" Jorge barked at the turian in the driver's seat, "Well, Trip, I guess it won't hurt to try."

The varren whined in pain as the medigel was applied to his wound, but the reptilian dog was soon quiet as the anti-pain medication took hold, "Okay, he probably shouldn't be in anymore battles, and neither should you two."

At Jorge's statement the two asari glared at the Spartan. This was everyone's fight; there was no way they were going to be forced out of it just because they were a little tired. _Okay, very tired,_ Matriarch Benezia admitted to herself as her vision began to blur with the tell tale signs of exhaustion.

Ahead of the grizzly, Emile and Wrex had hopped on the warthog as it sped by them, "Elvis, stay on him, Cheeks, shoot the fucker!"

In all truth, Ashley had been trying to get a bead on the synthetic puppet, but it managed to swerve the board it rode on, preventing any clean shot, and with the ammo count for the hog standing at a whole one shot left, Ashley had to be sure.

Finally, the former turian was lined up in the gauss' sights, and Ashley pulled the trigger.

Unfortunately, in a display of reactions that could only be matched by the Spartans riding behind, the robot turned and held up a bladed hand to generate an impossibly strong kinetic barrier that simply repelled the half pound chunk of metal.

"Damn it!" Ashley screamed as she watched her shot bounce off the impenetrable blue barrier.

"Q-ball, you still on the gun back there!?" Emile received a confirmation, "Then shoot the fucker!" he screamed into the comms. The spectre couldn't allow the robot to reach the Conduit first, or all they accomplished here would be in vain.

THUD…BANG! The impact of the incredibly strong round caused the barrier projected by the machine to wink out of existence, and fling the synthetic turian into the Conduit's immediate area, causing an immediate reaction.

"GOD DAMNIT!" Emile roared as he watched the Conduit shoot the former turian into the sky, where he would immediately be received by its twin sitting on the Presidium, "Gun it Elvis! We gotta get there, yesterday!"

Kaidan responded by hammering down the accelerator, Garrus not too far behind in his own reaction, and flew into the Conduit.

The Presidium was a mess. Fifteen seconds ago the relay monument had begun spinning just before it spewed forth a terrifying synthetic with glowing red eyes with dents and scratches all over its silvery-black armor. C-Sec had immediately opened fire, it turned out to be one of the worst mistakes of there suddenly cut short lives.

Mass effect propelled rounds barely managed to scratch the monstrous machine as it laid waste to those foolish enough to try and get in its way. To make matters worse, the fleet outside had just been assaulted by a massive geth fleet that had pummeled its way through the defense lines and was landing boarding parties on the Citadel. At the head of this fleet was a monstrous squid like ship. Nothing even appeared to be harming the beast as it simply shrugged off any attack made against it. It didn't even respond to any of those attacks; the ship simply sat in space, as though waiting for something.

As soon as the synthetic monster appeared on the Presidium, the time for waiting was over for the squid like ship, and it sped towards the Citadel.

Terrified citizens cowered as the synthetic monster, which, in twelve seconds, had killed the entire C-Sec presence on the Presidium, marched past them towards the elevator leading to the Council chambers.

Then, the relay monument began to spin again. The robot stopped and turned, mere feet away from its goal, as it waited to see what would come out of the monument, its enemies? Or its allies?

Two bright flashes, seconds apart, provided the answer as out of the first flash came a medium sized vehicle, heading straight for the synthetic.

The machine staggered its feet and thrust its right shoulder forward just as the warthog hit it. The two spikes of the combat vehicle, still covered in mangled parts, were far enough apart that the synthetic turian fit in between them.

Kaidan could only watch helplessly as the engine block caved in to the incredibly strong machine. Of course, the machine was pushed back as well, but it was pushed back without any damage done to it as its feet dug trenches into the metal floors of the Presidium.

The vehicle and its improvised brake stopped just a foot short of the lift doors, which slid open almost immediately. Emile leaped from the passenger seat of the hog and aimed his shotgun straight at the monster's head, and fired…

CLANG! The buckshot was stopped as the lift doors dropped just in time to shield the synthetic turian from the deadly shot, "DAMNIT!"

"We gotta take a skycar!" Wrex yelled, already heading for the terminal. Emile was hot on his heels, ready to jack a skycar and bolt for the Council chambers, but soon more thunderous sounds and bright flashes turned their attention back to the Conduit.

Geth. Platforms came through by the dozens, quickly filling up the only geth free zone on the Citadel left. Fortunately, Emile noticed that there were a significant lack of the larger platforms, it would seem he and his team had handled the large majority of the juggernauts and destroyers back on Ilos.

Significantly more important, however, was the lack of any living C-Sec officers up on the Presidium, and the rather large civilian population still alive. Emile glanced to his team, _two tired asari, two marines, a turian sniper, a quarian techie, a Spartan, a krogan battlemaster, and a wounded varren, it'll have to do._

"Wrex, get back to the team, Jorge's in charge, defend the Presidium, I'll go for Saren!" Emile roared as he sprinted past the krogan and squeezed himself into the sky car. His fist thrust upwards, shattering the glass roof of the vehicle while his other hand overrode the automated controls.

With a high pitched whine the car shot up into the sky headed for the nearest window. _I really hope this works,_ the Spartan thought as he sped the vehicle towards a thick window of what he hoped was only glass, it wasn't.

"FUUUUUUCK!" Emile screamed as the front end of the jacked skycar crunched, rendering the vehicle useless. On the bright side, he did manage to break through to the other side, but was now floating in open space…

…right towards a geth dropship. "S'cuse me, do you have a moment?" Noble Four said as punched open a door which would, under normal circumstances shoot geth platforms out onto the desired battlefield, "I'd like to talk to you about insurance, in case some asshole tries to jack your spaceship."

What he found on the inside was a tight space filled to the point of nothing else with combat platforms. Emile quickly brought his shotgun around and started punching a hole in the group.

As he did so, he noticed the cords attached to the platforms started to glow blue, just before they came online. _Interesting, seems the crew doesn't live full time in their robots._

Emile, armed with this new insight, flung his kukri at a glowing blue server. _Could that be considered a war crime?_ The Spartan wondered, there _could_ have been thousands of geth in there, and he just killed them without mercy. _Ah, who gives a shit?_

The server's lights winked out, and Emile was left with only five active geth troopers in the bay, who were promptly thrown out the hole Emile had just crawled in through, "Shoulda bought the insurance!"

Emile scrambled around the cramped troop bay, attempting to find his way to the navigation unit, since there wasn't likely to be a cockpit on a software controlled ship. _Aha!_

Emile linked his omnitool to the unit, and was met with stiff resistance, _few musta still been in the system when I crashed the server._ Not a problem for the resourceful Spartan as he slashed all connecting wires that were currently glowing blue, knowing them to be the ones filled with geth programs, and re-synced his omnitool into the system, this time with no resistance. _Saren, you better be sweating your robot ass off, cause I'm comin for ya._

Back on the Presidium, things weren't as complicated, but just as tough.

"We need to get that relay offline!" Jorge roared as he threw his fist through the chest of one trooper, to fling it into the next, sending both to digital oblivion, "Tali! That thing got any shots left!?"

Tali looked to see what the massive human was talking about, and noticed the railgun sitting atop the banged up grizzly housing two incapacitated asari and a wounded varren, "Um… Yeah, I think it does!"

"Then get on it girl!" Jorge yelled as he fired off some rounds from the Reach assault rifle he had stored in his backpack.

PING! Jorge sighed as he cycled the internal thermal clips inside the rifle, he was used to just holding down the trigger and watching every enemy die before he ever had to let up. Now, he could only get two, maybe three, kills before he had to 'reload,' as it were.

He noted, with some jealousy, Wrex holding off a wave of geth with Dragon's Breath. _I gotta get me one of those,_ the jealous Spartan thought as he moved to cover the small quarian as she darted to the grizzly.

"Alenko! There's an elite, right over there! Push it off the balcony! Williams! Help me cover Tali!" Jorge barked orders to the two Alliance marines. _Wish the boys in green back home had superpowers,_ Jorge commented as he watched Kaidan throw an elite geth straight off the second level balcony, dropping the machine in the lake below.

A sudden staccato of rounds drew Jorge back from the display of biotics and right into focus on the three geth trying to kill the Spartan. Jorge's shields had dropped a few minutes ago, and hadn't had the time to recharge as he stayed out of cover, keeping the geth from firing into the civilians. Even so, the silaris grade armor, made out of the Covenant mineral metal, was more than enough to reject any rounds the geth were capable of firing off at him. Mass effect rounds simply made a pinging noise as they just managed to dent the super tough metal, and plasma just left a scorch mark, without burning off more than a couple millimeters of the inch thick plate.

"Do your worst you puny little tinker toys, I've got more scars from rabid gerbils than what you can do to me!" _And Emile thinks I don't have a sense of humor,_ the large man thought with a chuckle, at least, he chuckled until Ashley's voice crackled over the comms.

"Jorge, don't joke, it… it's just not you." _Fuck her, what does she know? That was a great joke._

"I gotta say, Ash is right, your sense of humor is terrible." _Damn turian, just had to agree with his little girlfriend._

Tali was about a hundred meters out from the grizzly when a geth hopper drops right in front of her, "Keelah! I don't have time for this!"

CRACK!

"You sure don't, now get going!" Garrus' voice crackled in Tali's ears, it sounded like he was panting…

Snipers were not as still as everyone thought, especially in a long drawn out firefight with no permanent cover. Currently Garrus was leaping from patio to patio, a hail of gunfire following his every step. The apartment building he was climbing was located on the right side, facing the lift, of the elevator leading to the Council Chambers, meant for housing dignitaries, and ambassadors.

An explosion caught his attention, and Garrus glanced down towards the noise mid-leap. Earlier Jorge had the team hold off the initial wave of geth while he and the civilians had bunkered in behind the twisted metal of the warthog. Now a juggernaut was moving in on the barricade, seeming to have lost patience in waiting for the team to die.

Cursing under his breath, Garrus landed with a clang on the next patio, belonging to some hosh posh asari diplomat judging by the Thessian roses on the table. He paused long enough to aim, almost straight down, and blasted the red flashlight off the hulking machine.

As soon as the shot was loosed a red beam followed by a high powered round smashed into his right shoulder plate, lifting him off his feet, and throwing him back into the apartment.

"Ugh, I was hoping to keep the noise out, and some thug falls into my apartment, and starts bleeding all over my carpet."

Garrus opened his eyes and saw a finely dressed asari sitting on a couch, "Yeah, I'm not sorry, bitch."

"The nerve! Do you know who I am?"

"A bitch?" Garrus grunted as he slung his sniper rifle over his shoulder and onto the magnetic clasp, gasping a bit as he did so. The shot had not penetrated his shoulder plate, but the concussive force did crack it open causing his turquoise blood to seep out. _Thank the Spirits for in-armor medigel dispensary._

"I am Nassana Dantius!" the asari diplomat continued, apparently unaware that Garrus was no longer paying attention.

"Still a bitch!" the turian sniper called back as he dropped straight down on to the next patio, two floors down.

Tali scrambled onto the roof of the grizzly, and dropped into the hatch. She had to crawl over a somehow, sleeping Liara T'soni on her way to the railgun controls.

"Okay, Jorge, I'm here! What do you need me to do?"

"Take out that relay!" Jorge's deep voice pounded through her earpiece. Before Tali could respond, Kaidan's voice came over, voicing a concern.

"Wait, isn't that thing a mass effect engine? Wouldn't that thing exploding vaporize the Citadel?"

Tali frowned as she thought of that, the battle must have taken its toll on her, since she would normally be the one to think of that first. Even so, Tali's mind couldn't be matched as she went over everything she had observed of the receiving end of the Crucible.

"No, Keelah, of course! It's not a mass effect engine! The Citadel is! That relay is just an attenuator to help the Citadel receive what the Crucible is sending. I think we can blow it up!"

"Okay, THEN DO IT GIRL!" Tali winced at the powerful sound of Jorge's voice, but managed to aim the railgun, and fire…

The explosion rocked the entire Presidium, sending a shockwave that flattened any nearby geth, but it was nothing compared to the follow up detonation.

While the relay was not an active mass effect engine, there was still a substantial amount of eezo stored inside. The railgun had managed to destroy its container, and now the unstable element reacted with each other, with the air, with the metal that comprised the structure that once held it prisoner, and exploded.

The following flash, bang, and shockwave, vaporized a good part of the lake it sat over, the bridge that ran next to it, and the geth army that had emerged from it.

"Ugh, is everyone all right?" Jorge dared to ask from his position, buried under a pile of twisted metal.

"I'm good," Kaidan's voice came through.

"Keelah, my eyes! Um, we're all good in here!" Tali's shaky voice crackled in the Spartan's ear.

"I was far enough away; I'm all good up here." That was Garrus.

"Get this thing off of me!" Jorge looked towards were Ashley's muffled voice came from, and almost laughed at the comical scene. The female marine was trapped underneath the body of a dead elite geth, whose position in relation to the marine made it all seem very scandalous, "Oh yeah, it's frickin hilarious Jorge, get this thing OFF OF ME!"

Jorge stopped laughing for a second to haul the heavy machine off of the human, and to radio Wrex, "Hey, dinosaur, you still there?"

"C'mon! Did you really have to kill all the geth too!?"

Jorge frowned behind his maroon visor, "What?"

"That was the best fight of my life and you have to go and cut it short! Couldn't the bang have waited or something? I was having so much fun, and you took it away!"

Jorge just started chuckling, followed by Garrus, soon the whole team was just laughing at the distraught krogan, "It's not funny!"

"Oh shit, how the fuck do I land this thing!?" Emile wondered as his battered, hi-jacked dropship spiraled out of control, headed straight for the Council Chambers. Since the geth dropship had no windows, the only reason he knew he was headed for the Council Chambers was the navigation data being sent to his omnitool, which didn't look pretty.

CRRRRRUUUUUNCH! The bow of the ship passed through the window with little problem, but the hard metal deck of the floor was not so kind.

Fifteen minutes ago, just as Sovereign began its descent upon the Presidium, four asari commandoes, ten STG agents, and a platoon of Turian military regulars had shown up to evacuate the Council. They were about to do just that, when _it_ showed up.

With a powerful right handed shotgun that went straight through the powerful asari biotic barriers, and an incredibly accurate left handed rifle that never missed a head, and armor as black as night, and strong as the impenetrable blackness it represented. Nothing they did worked, snipers seemed to be the only weapon of any effect, but all those weapons had been destroyed by the adversary they threatened, and there wielders all lay with holes in there heads.

The remaining two commandoes, and one turian, the only one not armed with a sniper rifle, all tried to pretend they had the situation in hand, standing in front of the Council as the synthetic monster passed by.

But the creature seemed not to care about any who didn't stand in its way, only that it reach its objective. It walked straight off the diplomat's walkway, somehow extending it towards a holographic interface. It typed away at the board for a few seconds, then looked straight up, as though it could see through the ceiling, and waited just a few minutes, until it hit the commands to close the Citadel arms, sealing the civilian population in with Sovereign.

"Saren, what has happened to you? What have you become?" Sparatus exclaimed as he watched the synthetic that was once the most influential turian in the Hierarchy. The machine didn't even twitch at the Councilor's exclamation, but it would twitch as a geth dropship drove straight through the window in front of it.

The air tried to escape the room, but was stopped by a powerful mass effect barrier, keeping the atmosphere in, vacuum out.

The seven occupants of the room watched the still vessel lying bow first in the middle of one of the dirt mounds filled with trees scattered throughout the room. Smoke lazily drifted from the various scorch marks and dents on its hull.

A few seconds of nothing until something big inside started shifting. The sound of groaning metal could be heard from the wreck, then the sound of shifting weight came from somewhere in the middle.

BANG…BANG…BANG-CRUNCH!

Emile burst from the smoking wreckage, shotgun in hand, "Am I late to the party?"

The synthetic didn't reply as it simply brought its shotgun to bear and fired…

The shot put holes in the ground but nothing else as Emile had already moved, pumping an entire thermal clip into the only damaged part of the synthetic, the chest.

The buckshot was once again deflected, but the dent in the middle deepened. Emile sensed impending victory, and moved in to allow the closer range to maybe, finally, finish this thing off.

His shields absorbed the impact of the robotic monster's shotgun, and Emile was about to pull the trigger on his own shotgun for what, he hoped, was the last time at the synthetic turian. Before he could do so, however, a flash of black and silver left his shotgun lying in two pieces on the ground.

Shock didn't hold the Spartan as he simply continued his charge and tackled the monster. The synthetic attempted to bring its knife like fingers around to dig into the human's back, but the hand was stopped by a kukri knife plunging into the synthetic muscles of the wrist, spraying white 'blood' and rendering the high powered rifle inside the forearm inert.

The synthetic thrust its head forward, smashing its indestructible face into the Spartan's skulled face. The strike left cracks across the visor, ones that spanned from the surface to the inside so that even Emile could see the cracks. More importantly, however, was that it caused the human to rear back, allowing the robot to pull its legs to its chest, and throw the Spartan across the Chambers.

The synthetic turian raised its shotgun hand in the hopes of finishing off the only organic capable of stopping it. Before it could get the shot off, Emile had already brought up his Carnifax, and put a round down the shotgun's barrel, disabling the weapon and preventing the synthetic from producing its bladed right hand.

The Councilors, and what was left of their guard, were in a state of shock. The exchange between the Spartan and the monster had taken only a few seconds, most of the movement a blur to every eye in the room.

The five blades in the monster's left hand glowed as they began heating up, and melded together, forming a two foot long blade in its left hand.

"Talk about déjà vu, eh? A duel in the Council Chambers to save the lives of said Council, I've been here before."

The red eyed robot didn't seem to be listening as it simply charged the Spartan, who blocked the first strike with his own blade, and returned the blow, only to be blocked. While the blade the synthetic was using was twenty times stronger than titanium, it was still hot, and Emile's blade, while made out of titanium, was treated to have the tensile strength of a Halcyon class cruiser's hull.

Sparks flew on every meeting of the blades. To the non-augmented eye, it would appear that the fight was simply a blur from which sparks would fly. Blade made contact with blade at speeds that nearly superseded bullets. Arms twisted to meet the angle of attack, Emile's kukri knife showed dozens of notches lining the blade, the synthetics own blade showed one deep notch, near the base of the glowing hot sword.

Finally, after an excruciating five minutes of exchanging blows, each with the power to dislocate a krogan's jaw, Emile's knife finally struck the blade from its owner's grip, sending clanging along the ground. Unfortunately, it also sent the top half of his own kukri flying across the room.

"Fuck! You broke my knife you bastard! I'll kill you!" Emile yelled as he charged the synthetic.

What started as a knife fight had degenerated to a brawl as the two overpowered fighters traded blows.

_Fuck, he's,_ "OOPH!" _stronger than Jorge!_

Emile ducked under sideswipe, and launched a powerful kick to his opponent's dented chest plate, sending the synthetic over the edge of the railing, and down into the garden below the Council's seats.

A few hundred meters above the two combatants, a monstrous squid-like ship was wrapping itself around the Presidium Tower.

Inside the Council Chambers the shaking could be felt as the massive ship's smaller tendrils began hooking in to the Citadel's mainframe.

The six other people still inside the Council Chambers began looking around wildly, attempting to figure out what was going on. Valern was the first one to understand.

"That ship is taking control of the Citadel, we have to open the arms so the fleet can take it out!" the salarian shouted as he began the very funny looking jaunt over to the controls.

He was walking along the narrow walkway, trying to avoid being thrown off as the sounds of powerful punches being traded boomed below him.

"Sir, please get off the walkway, we'll take care of it!" one of the commandoes said as she and her comrade moved to take the Councilor off the bridge, with their turian teammate pointing his rifle into the pit below them.

Before the asari could get there though, the synthetic uppercut Emile in the stomach, causing him to smash into the underside of the walkway. Valern, with his ridiculous ceremonial robes, couldn't keep his balance as the platform he stood upon shook and he fell down into, quite possibly, the most inhospitable place on the Citadel.

"Councilor! What the fuck you doing down here?" Emile yelled as he pulled a full body suplex on his synthetic opponent. The robot's head smashed into the stone Emile had been aiming for, cracking the granite in half and barely leaving a scratch on the monster's metal head.

That wasn't to say the brawl had done no damage to the synthetic, in fact, Emile had done more giving than taking. There were dents scattered over the metal armor of the machine, all about the size of Emile's fist. The machine's red, left eye had been shattered, sputtering sparks from exposed wiring. The right arm, still locked in the shotgun mode, had been bent backwards, tearing synthetic muscle and ripping out active circuitry, rendering the arm inoperable.

Emile, while not taking as many blows as his adversary, had still accepted more than he had in his fight with Jorge. The plating on his back was cracked, making the danger of a breach to his fusion pack likely. His left forearm armor had literally been smashed from his arm, fracturing the unbreakable bones and causing intense pain every time Emile punched with that hand. His right shoulder piece was inverted from an incredibly powerful punch, scraping through the gel layer and further aggravating his separated shoulder, while his left shoulder piece had simply been ripped off. His visor was on the verge of shattering, which only served to piss Emile off. He had put a lot of time into that visor!

"Ugh, I've fallen!" the salarian Councilor shouted.

"Gee, you fucking think?" Emile grunted out as he received a powerful left hook from his opponent. His response was to grab the offending arm, and deliver a round house kick to the monster's head, using the captured limb as a pivot point.

The kick managed to put the robot on its ass, allowing Emile to spin around, and fling the monster across the room. That move gave him just enough time to grab the Councilor on the ground and fling him back up to the bridge.

Emile was offered no further reprieve as his robotic adversary tackled him from behind. It raised its club like stumps that counted as fists, and pounded on the fusion reactor pack on the Spartan's back.

_God, damn it!_ Emile activated the shut down sequence on his armor, if only to prevent the nuclear bomb on his back from going off.

Now being forced to actually move as though he was wearing his five hundred pound armor, Emile sluggishly threw an elbow into his opponents face, shattering the other eye.

He rolled over onto his back, looking up at the turian regular staring down at him, "YOUR KNIFE! GIVE ME YOUR KNIFE!"

The turian seemed to hesitate, but still managed to heed his orders as he tossed his six inch standard issue talon down to the massive human.

Out in space, the Destiny Ascension has taken critical damage. Weapons, offline, kinetic barriers, ten percent, structural integrity, pretty much gone.

"This is the Destiny Ascension, were taking heavy damage, weapons offline! Is there anyone out there who can hear us?" the Destiny Ascension's commanding officer cried out.

"Captain, we're picking up an anomaly! Three hundred thousand kilometers out!"

"I don't care if we're picking up anomalies! There are thousands of geth out there trying to kill us!" the Captain screamed at her subordinate.

"But this… thing, it's huge! And ma'am, the relay's spinning up, something's coming through!"

"Goddess, more geth?"

"No, I think it's the Alliance!"

Sure enough, out of the relay poured dozens of Alliance ships, dreadnaughts, cruisers, frigates, and out of the anomaly came the most powerful ship in the fleet, the Normandy.

"All ships, move in, save the Citadel Defense Fleet!" a weary, rough sounding voice came through the comms of each ship. Hundreds of mass accelerated rounds tore through open space, decimating the invading fleet through numbers alone. Following the multitude of powerful shot were a dozen bright white thunderbolts, and massive slugs pounded straight through even the most powerful dreadnaughts shields.

The Normandy wasn't the only ship equipped with an Onager cannon. Almost every dreadnaught in the Alliance fleet was equipped with two of the overpowered cannons. Alliance brass had fiddled with the idea of putting those incredibly impressive MAC cannons on dreadnaughts, but with the limited resources the Alliance could claim, since they weren't a Council species, they had decided on the much more economical Onager.

The extended length of the cannon that the massive size of the dreadnaughts provide, makes for a much more powerful shot than what the Normandy was capable of, making the Alliance dreadnaughts more than a match for their geth counterparts.

The geth still outnumbered the Alliance fleet, but numbers made little difference when most of the geth fleet was damaged from their fight with the Citadel Defense Fleet, and the Alliance fleet was still in top condition. The firefight was over in minutes, and no more than seven Alliance ships destroyed, and no further casualties amongst the CDF, the geth focusing solely on their number one threat.

"Alliance ships, the Citadel arms are opening, dreadnaughts line up in a circular formation surrounding Sovereign, fire in sync, cruisers, surround the Presidium ring, and fire up into that monster, Normandy, lead the charge from the top, down onto the monster. Hackett out."

The six Alliance dreadnaughts focused their fire on the massive squid shaped ship, Onagers just being absorbed by the incredibly strong kinetic barriers, but showing signs that the ship was slowly loosing its protective layer. Mass accelerator rounds pounded the bottom of the Reaper, initiating the ship's protective measures.

"Admiral, we're picking up huge energy readings from that ship, I think it's preparing to fire!"

"Cruisers get out of there!" the Hackett shouted into his comm. unit. His only reply was static, "Sensors, what's their status?"

"That ship is jamming comms, but most of the ships are intact, a good portion, however, are being devastated by whatever those weapons are!"

"Alliance fleet, be advised, this is Flight Lieutenant Moreau, those are streams of molten iron! Current kinetic barriers are ill suited to combat them."

"Thanks Joker. All right people get our ships out of its firing zone and concentrate on its undefended flank!"

The remaining cruisers, only about a fifth of what went in, managed to pull out from the devastating kill zone. The dreadnaughts were subject to much less powerful, secondary weapons the Reaper wielded, due to the inflexibility of the cannons of the monstrous ship, and were not forced to pull out, though they were taking heavy fire.

Above the Reaper, the Normandy led a wing of fighters diving straight down onto Sovereign's undefended back. The normally devastating plasma cannons of the Normandy only splashed and burned away a few inches of the several foot thick battle armor. The under slung mass driver of the Normandy only pounded the kinetic barriers the same way a drum stick pounds on a drum.

Sovereign seemed unstoppable.

"RAAAAAAAAAGH!" Emile roared as he took the stainless steel talon the turian regular tossed him, and slashed them through Sovereigns puppet's neck. The knife severed the thin wiring, tore through synthetic muscle, and buried itself halfway through the spinal cord before the knife simply snapped off. It was enough.

The machine began convulsing, thrashing around as the machinery that kept it 'alive' failed. Before it fell it managed to take one last swing at Emile, more out of blind luck than any actual attempt at revenge. The blow finally shattered his visor, sending the top half of the skull on his visor flying off as one piece, while the rest shattered into a million pieces, while knocking out the Spartan.

Outside, the monstrous ship finally showed weakness. The connection to the robotic puppet being severed so suddenly had caused a power fluctuation. Combined with the powerful weapons of the Alliance fleet, and the kinetic barriers fell, propulsion received an Onager as soon as the barriers went down, leaving it floating lazily through the void.

"This is our chance, all ships fire!" Hackett's rough voice blared through the comms.

A chorus of "aye sirs," and Sovereign lit up like fireworks, sending shrapnel and wreckage flying in every conceivable direction.

The Councilors looked down in shock at the very _young_ looking human that had just saved their lives. He had just beet, in hand to hand combat, a machine that had devastated twenty of the best soldiers their three races could muster. Now he lay on the ground, with a dozen wounds, any one of which would have at least incapacitated any other human.

"Well, don't just stand there, get him out!" Tevos finally yelled at the three soldiers standing at the edge of the pit.

"Um, yes ma'am, of course ma'am. Let's go! Biotic field to lift him out! You, turian, get a med kit ready!" the lead commando barked.

Two of the strongest biotics in the Asari Republics, and they could barely get the Spartan a foot off the ground, "C'mon, harder!"

Tevos finally joined the effort with her own, not inconsiderable, biotics. Finally, after an incredible amount of effort they managed to get him out of the pit and on the ground next to them, only to have Sparatus bark, "Leave him! We're in danger! RUN!"

The rest of them looked outside the already destroyed window to see a massive piece of debris headed straight for them. The Councilor and her fellow asari looked down at the prone Spartan, seeming to silently beg him awake, they didn't want to just leave him, but alas, his eyes remained shut.

**Phew, that took forever, I'm sorry. I guess I got a little carried away with some of the pieces. I'm not too sure about the beginning or the space battle, I'm not too good at space battles, but I'm fairly confident you'll like the battle scenes.**

**As you can see I deviated from the hopper version of Saren, mostly because I feel that the hopper version wouldn't be much of a match against a Spartan, but that's just me. Hopefully the new "terminator" version doesn't seem too far fetched, but I wanted to do something different.**

**Next chapter will be the aftermath of the destruction of Sovereign and no, to those who could possibly think Emile is dead, he isn't, he'll pull a Shepard and pop out from behind some wreckage.**

**I've mentioned this before, but never gotten an answer, should I keep going, put ME1 ME2 and ME3 all in the same story? Or should I spread them out, do some mini stories in between that show what happened in between the timelines?**

**Tell me what you thought about this chapter, that's an order, and please answer my question, I hate having to repost that.**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read. **


	24. Jenkins vs Geth

**And I'm back, what's up folks? Uh, it seems almost everyone wants this story to be one big one, rather than split into three separate stories, which is cool with me. So finally, finally Emile and Co. have stopped Saren and Sovereign, and now what is the Council to do with all this evidence that Reapers exist? Nothing of course! Well, that ain't true, the Human Systems Alliance and the Turian Hierarchy might have a little project up their sleeve, like say, building a super awesome, super huge, super kick-ass ship loaded with all sorts of funky new tech? I guess it'll depend on your reaction in the comments.**

**Jenkins heavy chapter, I hope you don't mind.**

Jorge looked around the battle scarred Presidium; he'd seen it in its prime, well, Benezia had, and he shared her memories, and it was indeed a stark contrast from the dirty, singed, blown up scenery before him. The massive crater where the relay monument once stood was quickly being filled up with water from the massive lake that went all around the Presidium Ring.

"It will take some time to rebuild the Presidium, not to mention the surely battle scarred wards," said a voice from behind him. Jorge didn't need to look over his shoulder to know who it was, but for some reason that confused Jorge, he wanted to see her face.

Benezia looked as serene and royal as ever, even in blood red combat armor that had a small skull painted in white on her left shoulder. Soot streaked her armor, but not her face, oddly enough, and a tired light shown from her eyes.

"Shouldn't you be resting?" Jorge asked, he felt oddly concerned for her. Benezia smiled at the worry that just, just, managed to touch his voice.

"I've rested enough, there is work to do, we need to get back up to the Council Chambers," the asari matriarch reminded the massive Spartan.

Jorge nodded as he looked over to the elevator that was supposed to take them there. Currently, there was a wrecked warthog standing between them and the entrance. The doors wouldn't open up, and neither would the elevator answer summons until all hazardous materials in front of the entrance were removed.

The team was trying to drag the two ton machine out, but the only one having any success at even budging the combat vehicle, was Wrex, "Move outta the way softies, let me show you how a krogan deals with obstacles!"

Alas, for all his bluster, the krogan would finally get the wreck out of the way in about four hours at his current rate. Jorge swiftly moved beside him, grabbed on to a protruding axle, and heaved with all his might, easily dragging the smoldering wreck away from the door.

"Yeah, sure was impressive dinosaur," Jorge smirked down at the krogan, possibly the only human in existence capable of doing so. Wrex just huffed as he sauntered up to the green panel and hit it with his palm. Oddly enough, the panel signaled that someone was already using the elevator.

"Get ready, might be hostiles! Everyone, take cover, Wrex, Alenko, I want a biotic barrier up on that doorway, pin 'em in, and I'll take em out!" Jorge ordered.

The biotic barrier sprung up in front of the lift's door, but neither Wrex, nor Alenko was glowing blue. Jorge just smirked and thought, _stubborn woman._ Just behind the large man, Matriarch Benezia held her hand out, holding the barrier firmly against the elevator door.

"Shouldn't you be resting, Matriarch?" Jorge asked, almost under his breath, she heard him anyway.

The only response was a biotic "thwack" to the head, "Alright, alright, I'll shut up. Bloody women and their bloody tempers."

Another thwack, but Jorge just ignored it this time, as the lift finally reached them. The shattered glass left by Emile's shotgun left the team unable to see what was inside; they'd have to wait for whoever was on the inside to open the door.

Inside the lift, the Councilors were discussing what to do. They had all come to the conclusion that there may be enemies on the other side, but with all the communications fried up in the Council Chambers, they had to come down to the Presidium.

"We'll have to go out at sometime; I obviously suggest the soldiers lead us out. Then we can perhaps make contact with the fleet outside, it's obvious they won," Sparatus remarked, hoping to get action out of the other two, still somewhat shell shocked, Councilors.

A few asari generations ago, about four thousand years, almost every asari grew up as a commando, but as time went on, and the turians took over as the military might, Tevos' generation grew up as, well, as strippers. The asari had adopted a view of peace, and as a result, this was the biggest battle the asari Councilor had been a part of, and it left her rattled.

Valern had been an STG man, well frog like man, but outright conflict? And on this scale? This dirty and desperate as the one he had just witnessed? Not often. So he was rattled, but not for long, and not as much as his asari peer.

"Of- of course, open it," the salarian managed to get out.

The turian regular got ready by the door panel, looked over to his asari compatriots, who stood a bright blue, biotic attacks ready to strike, and hit the door open.

A strange, seven note, whistle came from the other side of an opaque biotic barrier. The six in the lift looked at each other, confused, finally one of the commandoes said, "Um, are we in the free and clear?"

Little did she know the first part of her answer is what saved their lives. Jorge had been waiting for the answer, anything not including 'we're all free' or something similar, he'd have ripped the insides to shreds, assuming they had killed the only person he'd ever taught the password to.

Jorge sent a nod over his shoulder, and the barrier dropped, revealing the Council, three soldiers, and no Emile, "Where's Emile? Where's Spartan A239?"

The Council, in their shock at seeing _another_ Spartan, didn't answer, fortunately one of the commandoes did, "Missing, presumed dead. He beat that robot thing, but when the debris from that ship outside hit the Chambers, he was left behind."

"So you left him?" That came out colder than the Spartan had intended, but he was more than a little angry they had left his only friend in this universe to die.

The massive Spartan just shoved his way past the six people, shoved them out of the lift, but before he could hit the up button, a strained bark caught his attention. Trip appeared to know his master was in need of help, and cut leg or not, he wasn't going to leave his alpha alone, "Let's go pup, Emile needs our help."

The massive varren drew stares from the Council and their guards, who raised their weapons at it, thinking it a threat, but were stopped by the flash of Jorge's dangerously tilted visor. The reptile sat down at Jorge's heel, not whimpering from the pain, not barking stupidly, not even panting. _It would appear I ain't the only one worried for the punk,_ Jorge thought as he hit the controls.

"INCOMING!" Jenkins screamed at his team. He took cover just in time to see a geth rocket shoot over his cover and slam into the civilian barricades.

"Thomas, blast that rocket trooper!" Jenkins roared over teamcomm. Rather than a worded reply, Jenkins was treated to the sight of red machinery flying apart from the corporal's very own Finger of God.

The Alliance marine and his team, Private James Vega, Private Rachel Thompson, Corporal Thomas Lewinski, and Specialist Leonardo Ramirez, had been ordered to hold the civilian barricades on Zakera Ward by Admiral Hackett himself. Even though the fleet was beaten, the geth on the 'ground' kept pushing forward. About an hour of constant fighting had left the team exhausted, Ramirez's biotics were on the point of uselessness, and the team was low on thermal clips.

Jenkins pounded a juggernaut's shields with his Avenger, letting Vega finish it off with blast from his Katana, "Push 'em back! They're falling back!"

It was true, the thirty strong geth force that had assaulted the barricade not fifteen minutes ago had been whittled down to five… four, three troopers and a sniper, who were pulling out.

"Follow them, don't let 'em bug out without a fight!" the lead marine shouted as he headed his own orders, sprinting forwards, leaping over chest high twisted metal in pursuit of the geth.

"HAHA! Hell yeah Loco! Let's get those putos!" Vega screamed as he followed his seemingly fearless leader. The rest of the team was more cautious on their approach, Thomas not even leaving his post until the other two reached the end of the scorched, pocket marked hallway.

Jenkins and Vega followed the four geth all the way to the docks, where they found a Kodiak dropship… picking up the geth?

"Loco, what the hell is goin on?" Jenkins didn't know how to respond to the young marine. What were the geth doing boarding Alliance dropships?

"They use them to pass our fighters," a new voice pitched in. Both Jenkins and Vega whirled around to point their weapons at the sound.

"Hold your fire Vega," Jenkins ordered. What they had found was man wearing an Alliance uniform, "Identify yourself soldier!"

"Steve Cortez, Alliance pilot. I set my bird down here after taking some fire from those… eye things that shoot lasers. Those things are out of the sky, but now we got geth taking those old Kodiaks to move around without taking fire."

"Any idea where they're going Cortez?" Jenkins asked as the rest of his team caught up with the trio on the docking platforms.

"If I were to take a guess, it looks like they're headed for the Zakera Spire, the biggest building on this ward arm. It is where they first landed; I think they're making a final stand."

Jenkins turned his eyes out to the ward arm, almost all forty kilometers in front of him. Indeed, the tall signature of the Zakera Spire had all manner of ship, geth and Citadel alike, flocking around it. Once in a while, the marines could see a bright flash as one of the ships surrounding the skyscraper was destroyed.

"What's still working on your ship soldier?" Jenkins directed his question to the pilot.

"GARDIAN lasers are still active, sensors, but the mass effect core is down. We can take one of the civilian vehicles here, but, they'd just get shot down before we'd get halfway there."

The sergeant was considering options when Vega and Rachel walked over and the female private ribbed him, "Ow, what!?"

The techie of their team pointed at a civilian truck, an _armored_ civilian truck.

"Rachel, can you tie in the GARDIAN lasers into that thing?" the leading marine questioned as he looked the vehicle over.

"Shouldn't take more than five minutes, sir," the enthusiastic marine replied. Jenkins grabbed Thomas and Vega and started to direct them. In four minutes, Rachel was nearly done tying in the power supply, and the three others had cut in firing windows for the GARDIAN's.

"We're good to go back here, Cortez, how's the truck coming along?" Jenkins yelled at the pilot who was currently sitting in the truck's cab.

"This beast won't get us there right away, but it'll get us there in one piece, I hope."

"You hope?" Vega shot back at the cab as Jenkins shut the door on the back, "Man this ain't no time to be hopin. Are you sure about this thing?"

"Scared meathead?" Jenkins said to the young marine, "punch it Cortez."

The armored behemoth shuddered as it took off, and threw the marines in the back against the rear door, "Cortez, I thought you said this thing is slow!"

"Someone kitted out the mass effect core, this thing is as fast as a Kodiak!"

"LOCO! I hate you for dragging me along on this!" Vega shouted as Cortez dodged fire from a wing of geth fighters.

Emile's head hurt, bad. _What the fuck happened to me?_ Just as he wondered about what could cause such a vicious headache, the fight with the Reaper puppet came back to him.

"Shit," the Spartan mumbled as he pulled himself in an upright position. He took in his surroundings, not good. He was trapped under what appeared to be a serious portion of Sovereign.

The only indication of pain was a grunt as Emile popped his shoulder back into position. The Spartan took note of the condition his armor was in, not good. Most of the armor plates were smashed, cracked, and malfunctioning. Shields were inoperable, fusion reactor offline, though he _was_ the one who shut it down, and his visor was smashed, _gonna have to carve a new skull._

He began stripping the armor off of his body, wincing every time he strained a wound or stressed a fractured bone, but he eventually got it all off, leaving him in a tattered and torn gel layer that barely covered half of his body. Emile was about to try and squeeze out of the wreckage that sheltered him when he noticed a glint. Peering closer a smile spawned on his face… it was the top half of his visor, skull intact.

Jorge and Trip exited the lift when it reached the Council Chambers, and were greeted with the sight of an absolute mess, "What a bloody sty, you could keep a room cleaner than this Trip."

The varren paid little attention to the massive man as he started forward, nose searching for any sign of his master. The reptilian dog searched, and searched, and searched, but the only sign was a faint scent trail leading away from a downed geth dropship that appeared to have had a hole busted from the inside out. The trail lead straight into the wreckage, which brought even more doubt in Jorge's mind. The odds were not in the young Spartan's favor.

Just as Jorge was going to start moving wreckage, shifting coming from behind a massive hunk of metal alerted him. He could see a figure dart from cover to cover, almost as though it were stalking Jorge…

"BOO!"

"BLOODY HELL! What in God's name are you doing? Sneaking up on me, you're something else Punk."

The smaller Spartan just laughed at his friend's expense while the other moved to look at him. Emile was in bad shape, not dead, not in critical condition, but bleeding, bruised, hurting, but his body language showed no signs of pain. It was impossible to see his face, he appeared to have taken the skull portion of his visor and used a torn up sleeve to tie it in place.

"C'mon big man, fighting's over, let's go relax, get some drinks, play cards, maybe Mrs. 052 will let you go to a titty bar, eh?" the injured Spartan joked, never showing a sign of pain.

"Hey boy! Oh, you got hurt! I hope you got that fucker good boy, extra nathak meat for you tonight," Emile sweet talked his loyal varren, who seemed much happier at finding his master, and the promise of more food.

"Yeah, okay Punk, let's get down stairs, your team is awaiting its fearless leader's return," Jorge prompted his friend.

"Hah, I got you so good big man."

Jorge frowned behind his maroon visor, "What are you talking about?"

"I called Benezia Mrs. 052, and you never corrected me," the smaller man laughed.

_God damn Punk,_ Jorge thought humorlessly, he was just glad to see that Emile, at the core, hadn't really changed. He was still the same arrogant asshole the big man remembered him to be, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

"Hang on back there guys, this beast wasn't designed for this maneuver," Cortez yelled over his shoulder. Vega hadn't been taking well to Cortez's maneuvers, as they usually ended up with the passengers flying around the truck.

"Oh shit, here we go again," the large marine muttered as he felt the armored truck shudder and move.

Geth fighters had been pursuing the armored shuttle almost since it left the docks. Currently they were in the mass effect field of Zakera Ward, meaning there was still gravity, and no vehicle that heavy should be flying upside down.

While the geth were pondering the organics' strange behavior, the shuttle suddenly dove, flipped right side up again, and ascended right in the middle of the geth fighter wing.

"Open up!" Jenkins ordered as he and Thomas took control of the 'redneck laser system' and fired focused infrared lasers that cored the fighters with minimal effort.

"Vega, you okay?" the lead marine asked as he looked around the cargo hold for the bulky soldier, "Okay, it isn't that bad, shake it off marine!"

Vega was curled up in the corner, having bolted himself in with leather straps lying around the hold, using his omnitool, "Forty five air drops, forty five, Sarge! One flight with this guy and I'm scared!"

"Hahahaha, then you won't like my next maneuver!" Cortez yelled back from the cab.

Both Rachel and Ramirez suddenly got a worried look on their faces as well, seems it wasn't just Vega that was shaken by Cortez's reckless driving.

"We got two wings converging on our location, I'm gonna have to do something a little risky!" the flyboy spoke out as he prepared to put his plan in action.

The massive jamming field an armored truck like this gives off is designed to wreak havoc with military grade tracking missiles, but now hid one geth fighter wing from the other that was just on the other side.

Cortez killed the engines, causing the armored cargo shuttle to drop, skidding across a rooftop as a wing of geth fighters crashed into the other, wiping out all enemy threats to the shuttle. That only left gravity; it ain't just a good idea, it's the law.

BOOM! The shuttle had skidded across the rooftop, and crashed through the middle floors of the one right next to it. Cortez was frantically flipping switches, trying to restart the engines of the armored behemoth they currently were falling to their deaths in.

Just before the shuttle could take a fatal nose dive, Cortez managed to get the core back on line, and jet the shuttle straight through more office buildings.

"Y'know, you're racking up quite the bill for the Alliance, Cortez!" Jenkins shouted as they emerged from the building and climbed into above the building level.

"Yeah, yeah, hey. There's something going on at the Zakera Spire. It looks like friendly forces are just blockading them, but every now and then… like right now, a shuttle tries to go in and gets shot down."

Jenkins pondered the possibilities, "Sounds like an op went wrong in there. Get me Hackett, maybe we can figure out what to do."

"Aye, sir."

The next five minutes went undisturbed as Jenkins figured out what was going on in the tower. Apparently C-Sec had been taking massive casualties trying to storm the massive tower, and finally decided that the casualties weren't worth it, so they sent in a highly specialized asari commando squad to plant a modified active disruptor torpedo warhead in the center, and let the enhanced mass effect singularity destroy the building from the inside out. They had lost contact five minutes after the team went in, but were tracking the warhead, it wasn't moving, meaning the team was dead and the geth didn't care about the warhead, or they were pinned down. Either way, no one could get in there to assist them… at least, no one yet.

"Admiral, requesting permission to get in there, and complete the mission. My squad is on route with a heavily armored civilian cargo shuttle, we can breach the defenses and get in there."

"Hhm, damn it. All right son, get in there, plant that warhead, and get out!" the Admiral responded, "I'm having the coordinates for the warheads current position forwarded to you, we're counting on you soldier."

"Aye, sir, we won't let you down," Jenkins shut off his comm. unit, "Cortez! Get us in there!"

"Yes sir, you might want to tell Vega to not bother changing his pants, I'm just gonna get them dirty again!"

_Oh shit, that ain't good,_ Jenkins worried to himself as he tightened his grip on his GARDIAN laser turret.

Sharp PINGs alerted the team to the shuttle taking fire that the armor managed to repel. But the sudden case of vertigo alerted them to the sudden change in direction.

The vehicle flipped upside down and dove, causing rockets to miss their intended targets. Cortez pulled the shuttle into a narrow 'street,' forcing the geth fighters to follow.

"C'mon baby, don't fail me now!" Cortez exclaimed as he pulled a tight turn between two tall buildings, forcing the geth to try and duplicate his maneuver and fail. Unfortunately, the armored shuttle was incapable of pulling off the turn cleanly, and as a result wiped out half the twenty second story of a turian owned hotel.

"Hey, this is the front desk, how was your stay?" Cortez cackled as he pulled back up into the 'sky' and pulled a nastily tight turn back on route for the Zakera Spire.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I know you have a choice in combat airdrops, and it looks like you made the wrong one!" Cortez managed to get out before the armored shuttle skidded along the fortieth floor of the Spire, crushing several geth troopers and a couple of destroyers.

"Damn right we made the wrong one, hijo de puto!" Vega yelled as he tried to stand on wobbly legs.

"Enough bickering, the torpedo is two floors down, then we gotta get it four floors up from our current position. We're in hostile territory, and extraction has to be a primary concern. Vega will come with me, Ramirez you're in charge here, keep the truck functional because we're gonna need to get outta here fast once that charge is set." Jenkins barked orders at his marines, while he picked up his Avenger assault rifle and his Mantis sniper rifle, motioning for Vega to get the back door open.

Jenkins immediately regretted his last decision, with their motion trackers down due to the jamming field of the truck, three elite geth had managed to sneak behind the truck and ready themselves for the marines inevitable exit.

"Vega, GET DOWN!" Jenkins screamed as he shouldered his Mantis, pounding the lead platform with a high velocity round, though the shields just absorbed the punishment. It bought Vega enough time to get his Katana pointed at the same enemy, shredding through what was left of the shields and destroying the flashlight like head.

Jenkins just threw the sniper rifle at the next geth, disorienting it enough for Jenkins to pull up his Avenger and pummel the shields just before tackling it to the ground with his knife poised to sever some important looking wiring.

Vega fired the remainder of his thermal clip in his Katana into the last geth, putting it down after the fourth and final shot. The broad marine sighed as he pumped the next thermal clip into the shotgun, then looked over to where Jenkins was.

He didn't see Jenkins, but the geth was lying on the ground with a knife buried in its shoulder getting up. Vega prepared to fire, but was interrupted as Jenkins came leaping back down on the platform, screaming bloody murder as he knocked it to the ground and finished the job with his assault rifle.

Apparently when Jenkins had been moving in for the kill with the knife, the platform had kicked Jenkins into the air, but not before the marine managed to get his knife in its shoulder. The marine had landed on top of the shuttle, but had regained his bearings in time to leap down and finish the machine off.

"Vega, lets move!" The two began a mad dash across the empty room to the elevator, under a hail of mass accelerator rounds.

"Form up in the lift, give em two targets between us and the shuttle and Thomas won't have any trouble picking them off!"

The marines made a stand in the lift, using the control panel as cover, and watched as one by one, the geth troopers dropped from white, smoky trails and terribly powerful sonic booms.

Only a couple platforms were left when it came time to activate the lift. The two quickly dropped down a couple of floors leaving the enemy platforms open to turret fire from the shuttle.

"You ready for this Vega? It's probably gonna be packed with geth."

"Fuck yeah Loco, after that trip through hell, firefight is just what I need," the muscular marine replied.

Jenkins just smiled as the elevator neared the bottom. As soon as the lift's doors sprang apart, Jenkins tossed in a flashbang, disorienting and jacking the wiring of several nearby platforms, leaving them easy targets for the two Alliance marines.

The moved out of the reception room, leaving five smoking geth platforms, and moved into a section of cubicles, even in space there were pencil pushers.

"Vega, draw their fire, expose their positions, and I'll put em down," Jenkins ordered his subordinate.

The lower ranking marine pointed at a nearby cubicle, and punched through with a powerful shot from his shotgun. Several geth leaned out of cover to take a shot at the organic, but were stopped short of firing by several bursts of an Avenger assault rifle.

"Move up, and repeat!" And so they did, systematically clearing out the foolish marines until they reached what looked like the big boss's office.

Jenkins moved to the side of the door, hand on the control panel, and shared a glance with Vega who had moved directly in front of the door, ready to fill the room with buckshot should there be hostiles on the other side.

"1…2…3!" the sergeant whispered as he hit the controls. Vega stormed in, shotgun at the ready, but was wrapped up in a biotic field and slammed against the wall.

"OW! God damnit! I'm on your side!" the trapped marine cried out. The geth didn't have biotics, but the asari commando team sent to plant the warhead certainly did.

"Goddess! I apologize, but I'm the only survivor of my team. The geth had been trying to gain access to the warhead, but I've managed to hold them off." The asari was standing next to a small-ish device._ That must be the warhead,_ Jenkins surmised.

"Yeah, that much is obvious, Vega, take point. You, asari, you coming with us?" Jenkins asked as he grabbed the warhead and placed it onto the lower magnet plate on his back.

"My name is not asari, human," she started coldly, "it is Tela Vasir, I'm a candidate for the Spectres, I'll have you know!"

"Oh that's real nice, my name is I Don't, and his is A Fuck. You coming, or what?" Vega retorted from the doorway as Jenkins filed in right behind him.

"Goddess, you humans are so annoying! Yes I'm coming, why would I trust such an important mission to some pink skinned humans?"

"_Bitch!_" Vega and Jenkins simultaneously muttered under their breath as the made their way back to the elevator.

One awkward elevator ride later, the trio arrived on the target floor. There was a load bearing column in the center of the floor. When the warhead would go off, the column that bore the majority of the buildings weight would be destroyed all along its length. Contrary to logic, the mass effect torpedo would form a crushing singularity halfway along the columns length, drawing particles from the bottom and the top of the column, weakening the entire structure, and allowing the artificial gravity of the Zakera Ward arm to crush the building, and every geth inside.

"3…2…1! Go, Go, Go!" the lead marine shouted as Vega dashed through the door, blasting a nearby geth trooper right off its feet. Jenkins' Avenger peppered a destroyer's shields, letting Vasir to fling it into the far wall with her biotics.

Soon, the room just outside the lift was filled with smoking geth platforms. Jenkins checked his wrist mounted GPS to check where they were in relation to the target. He pointed them through a restaurant that offered the quickest route.

Outside the door, Vega peaked in, and immediately drew back as mass accelerator rounds peppered the wall right next to him.

"Okay, Vasir, you need to put up a barrier, Vega and I will find cover, then you can drop it and we'll take care of the geth."

The asari commando huffed at being ordered around by humans, but did what was asked of her anyway. As soon as the barrier was up, the geth pounded on it, letting the two human marines to slip past unnoticed and take up firing positions.

Once the machines were taken care of, Jenkins called for Vasir, and moved up to the kitchen area. He peeked through the glass window in the door and saw a reflection of a geth shock trooper in the stainless steel door of a walk in fridge.

He leaned through the unlatched door, and tossed a spent thermal clip across the kitchen, causing the dangerous machine to pop up and fire its shotgun at the harmless piece of red hot carbon. Jenkins put the platform down and ushered his team right out the door at the back of the kitchen.

"Let's go, the target is just through that thrift shop!" Jenkins whispered violently to his team as they watched a prime lead three destroyers past their current position and into the restaurant they had just come out of.

The leader checked both ways, twice before leading the dash to the currently deserted thrift shop himself. It was a stealth mission from this point on, creeping through the shop, stopping every time a patrol of geth moved past them, waiting with bated breath for the dangerous machines to move on.

Eventually the three made it to the central load bearing column. It was fairly large, approximately ten feet in diameter, and made out of, what ever the hell the Reapers made the Citadel out of.

"So, will this actually work?" Vega asked.

"Of course it will, human. It was an asari captain who came up with it!"

"You know bitch, you are _really_ annoying."

"Can it, both of you. Cover me while I set this thing up." Jenkins ordered. He found Vasir annoying, but there was no reason for Vega and her to get into a fight in the middle of hostile territory.

The two soldiers shared a glare before they moved to cover the Sergeant while he armed and planted the warhead. Vega was just pissed about how damn _ungrateful_ the asari was. Two human marines had essentially saved her from a horde of geth just outside her door, and she despised them for it! She was, and always will be, a bitch in Vega's opinion… even if she was hot.

Vasir was angry with both of the humans; they had the gall to order her, her! Tela Vasir! Candidate for the Spectres and grade A commando with the biotic ability to rival a matriarch! She should be in charge, she, who was older than both humans and all three of their previous generations combined! But most of all, she was upset that these humans were alive, while her teammates were not.

Jenkins could practically feel the heat of their anger at his back while he armed the warhead, _kids, the hell you gonna do?_

"Okay, the warheads armed, you ready?... guys?" Jenkins turned back to the two and found a disturbing sight.

A geth prime, three destroyers, and a column of troopers and snipers stood before them. _Shit, _Jenkins thought as he turned back to the warhead. There was no three minute's to get back to the shuttle now, just thirty seconds for the warhead to gain power, then an immediate explosion.

"THE WINDOWS! GO FOR THE WINDOWS!" Jenkins roared as he held the trigger down on his rifle, peppering the geth platforms.

Vasir and Vega broke for the windows at the same time. Vega blasted the window with his shotgun, sucking all the air out of the room, barely giving the two enough time to slam their helmets on their head as they leaped from the building…

…straight into the shuttle that had brought the marines there.

"Cortez! What the fuck are you doing here?" Vega screamed as they were caught by his teammates in the cargo bay.

"Aw, such bad manners, if you want to go back to falling hundreds of feet to your death, I could just throw you out!" the flyboy retorted from the vehicles cab.

"Never mind that, Vega, where is the sergeant?" Rachel asked as she looked among the two they had just caught. Unless Jenkins lost some weight, acquired a skin condition, and had major plastic surgery, this asari was not their leader.

"Shit, Loco's still back there! He must have stayed behind to cover us!" Vega exclaimed, immediately looking back at the tower they had just leaped out of. Instead of seeing the tower though, all he saw was a brilliant white explosion.

"DAMNIT!" Vega screamed, right up until something slammed into him.

**Okay, I guess that can't really be construed as a cliffhanger, I think we all know what that object was. I've really struggled to get any traction with this chapter. Making something up by scratch simply isn't my strong suit. I hope you liked it anyway. One more chapter to go before the ME1 timeline is over, after that I may take a hiatus, mostly to work on something else my mind has been bugging me about.**

**I just posted something on my profile page; I would appreciate it if you guys could look it over and tell me what you think, preferably through instant messaging.**

**Please review, I don't want to write something, you don't want to read.**


	25. Politics and Ryncol

**Hey guys, it has been a couple of weeks since I've seen you guys here on Mass Emile, and hopefully you haven't written me off as dead as many of you like to do to other authors. I'm sorry I haven't updated in a little while, as I have been working on another story for the past two weeks.**

**I believe we left off with Jenkins and Co. fighting geth, and Jenkins seemingly dying in a huge explosion, and Emile limping off the battlefield after getting in a fist fight with a super powered robot.**

**This chapter will be the aftermath of the Battle of the Citadel, and foreshadowing of the super secret ship project that the HSA and the Turian Hierarchy will be working on, and damn you Guest, for guessing that I would have them working side by side.**

Jenkins woke up to blinding lights, "Wh-what's going on?"

"You got me, I told Doc. Chalk that I was fine, but here I am in the ICU."

Jenkins started chuckling at the brash sound of his Commander lying on the medical bed next to him. It was just like Emile to tell everyone he was fine, even if he could barely walk around. Memories of what happened to land him in a hospital came back to the Systems Alliance marine.

"So how did you end up here kid?" Emile asked. He still had the skulled part of his visor over his face, mostly so that he could take it off before going around people, and they wouldn't recognize him, but also because it provided some protection against the ridiculous flash's of the goddamn press's cameras.

"I set the timer on a bomb, and couldn't get away fast enough, you?"

"Fist fight with a super powered robot."

"Gah, I hate it when that happens," Jenkins joked, trying to ignore the pain he felt every time he inhaled.

"I know right? The robot I can handle, but when I need kryptonite just to take the fucker down, that's where I draw the line," Emile laughed somewhat painfully.

The two soldiers shared a laugh over their methods of intensive injuries for a while, before a nurse came in and told Emile that surgery had apparently been a success.

"Great," he grunted as he hopped out of the bed, "I'll see you later Bambi." Ignoring the nurse's protests, the six foot eight inch man walked out of the room as though there wasn't a single thing wrong with his battered body.

"See you later Commander!" Jenkins yelled over the nurse's shouting at Emile to get back in bed, _crazy fucker._

Emile sauntered out of the hospital after retrieving some clothes that fit him, barely, and headed to the Normandy, hoping to see his team. He passed several areas that looked as they had been shot up in firefights, or ripped apart by passing geth gunships, _gonna take a while before this place is back up to specs._

The Spartan passed a group of Alliance marines he recognized from the Normandy, _must be Jenkins' crew_. He didn't bother saying anything to them, but gave them a nod as he passed. They looked concerned, even the asari that was tagging along with them. Emile snorted as he thought maybe Jenkins had a fan, and continued towards the Alliance Docks.

He passed by the huge window that looked over the wards and stopped to see what the total damage was. He could see the huge spire in Zakera Ward was nothing more than smoldering rubble. All over the wards there were spots of inky blackness, where the power was either out, or stray slugs had obliterated the buildings there. Pieces of the ward arms were just gone in some cases, places where the molten iron guns the geth were using had sheered off the edges, or the gigantic slugs of the mass drivers had punched holes in the already weakened metal of the Citadel.

He was interrupted from his observations when something large, hard, and scaly muzzled against his right leg. The Spartan looked down to see a massive varren rubbing his scaly head against the human's thigh.

"Hey Trip, how'd you get down here?" Emile asked his reptilian dog. He couldn't really believe that anyone would just let the lethal varren wander around the Citadel alone. It turned out he was right as Kaidan and Liara ran around the corner shouting the varren's name. Apparently the two had taken the restless varren on a walk to work off the tension the animal was acquiring waiting for his master.

"Emile!? What are you doing out of the hospital so soon?" Kaidan asked worriedly as they saw just who the varren had run off to find.

"Docs said that the surgery to repair any organ damage was a success, so I got the hell outta there."

"Goddess Commander! Your surgery was only four hours ago! You shouldn't be walking around yet!" Liara exclaimed. She moved closer to the large man, as if expecting him to collapse at any moment.

"I'm fine, really. Two days after my augmentations I was already lifting weights and running marathons, a little internal damage ain't gonna stop me," Emile replied. That was a lie, but he was pretty sure only the varren could tell, and it wasn't like he could tell the others that.

"Yeah well, it looks like Trip doesn't believe your story."

Emile looked down at the large reptile, "Traitor."

The varren's only response was to whine and wag his tale. _Aw, damnit! Nononononono,_ "Okay I forgive you."

Kaidan and Liara laughed gently at the two, before demanding that Emile go back to the hospital.

"Hell no! Look, if it's so damn important to the two of you, then I'll go get some bed rest on the Normandy," he attempted to compromise. Liara, trusting girl that she was, immediately agreed, but the look in Kaidan's eye told the Spartan that the marine knew there wasn't going to be any sleeping, resting, or relaxing of any kind. Still, the biotic agreed, and the four headed back to the Normandy.

At the C-Sec headquarters there was a proverbial mob of reporters and other media personnel. Fortunately, Emile still had the skull tied to his head, and the visor still automatically changed the tinting as the cameras began flashing. The giant man was prepared to have to wade through the group, as they seemed intent on getting something out of him before they would let him to the elevator, but Trip was already on top of the situation.

The varren could sense his master's unease, and immediately began growling and salivating. It made quite an intimidating picture, a varren that was taller than any volus with eight inch razor sharp tusks dripping with drool as a deep, gravelly grow emanated from the beast's chest. Emile just smirked behind his helmet as he walked down the convenient path the reporters and cameras had made for him and his two teammates. He was already in the elevator on his way up before anyone even asked a question.

"Who let the varren loose on the wards?"

Jorge was currently holding a piece of titanium composite in place for the engineers to weld it in place. The multi ton piece of interior hull would normally be too much for any one, two, or three people to hold in place, but Jorge wasn't an average human. And the help he was currently receiving wasn't hurting anything either.

"Are you sure you don't have something more important to do, ma'am? I highly doubt holding sheet metal in place is where someone would expect to find an asari matriarch," the seven foot tall man said as he finally released the heavy chunk of metal. He nodded to the engineers who thanked him for helping out with repairs.

The Normandy had taken a beating over the past twenty four hours, from defeating a thirty ship geth fleet on its own, to leading the charge against the Reaper Sovereign. The two major hull breaches had already been fixed, and the minor ones were being welded up Jorge approached the regal asari in front of him.

"I highly doubt I will have many matriarchal duties from now on, especially considering my betrayal of the Council and service to Saren," Matriarch Benezia admitted as she walked with the much larger human towards the open doors of the cargo bay. The Normandy looked much like it had when it was being built, with scaffolding completely surrounding the stealth frigate.

"Yeah, well, anyone who thinks you're a traitor is an idiot," Jorge commented as the duo finally entered the shockingly pristine cargo bay. The interior was the first thing the repair teams had gotten to work on, even though there wasn't much damage. Some relays along the ship had blown due to the extreme stress Joker had put them through during the battles. As a result, the inside was already up to specs, leaving only some minor hull repairs and a paint job as the only thing needing to be done. The smaller ship had been far more fortunate than a large majority of the Citadel Defense Fleet, and a good portion of the Alliance fleet that had come in to 'save the day' as it were.

"But I am a traitor Jorge. I betrayed the Council because I foolishly believed I could turn Saren down a more peaceful path, then I immediately betrayed him as soon as your friend unscrambled my brain…"

"Are you done feeling sorry for yourself?"

"… What?" Benezia asked dangerously, she didn't take kindly to being insulted like that.

"All this moaning over what you did wrong and what you could have done differently. I don't have a time machine Benezia, so all this bitching your doing is actually quite pointless."

"…"

At the asari's silence, the Spartan stopped and turned to regard her, "There is nothing you can do to change the past, this is the hand you've been dealt and I suggest you pick up your cards and play."

Matriarch Benezia looked the Spartan over. He wasn't in his armor, but rather in the biggest clothes anyone on the Citadel could provide, which meant a skin tight shirt and pants meant for a beefed up krogan. Benezia had never found muscles necessarily attractive before, but now she loved it when Jorge wore clothes that showed off his physique.

"I suppose you are right, I shouldn't be distracted with the past," she admitted as she pressed the key on the elevator for the third level, the same floor that her quarters were on.

"Hm, damn right I'm right. Distractions can be costly, especially now, when we all have so much to lose," Jorge huffed as the elevator finally pulled to a stop.

"Luckily, I'm never distracted," he finished as he followed the matriarch blindly.

"Oh, you're _never_ distracted, huh?" Benezia asked playfully as he followed her blindly into her room which was opposite the medical bay.

"Never," he said confidently.

"Then how did we end up in my room?" she asked coyly.

Jorge started as he looked around, all that he remembered was following the beautiful asari out of the elevator while trying to puff up his ego a little, "Uh, okay, I may have just been distracted, but I'm usually not."

He turned to leave the room and found the door locked, "Okay, I was apparently really distracted…"

He turned to regard Benezia but was hit in the face with something soft. He pulled it off and held it out, it was Benezia's dress. He glanced around the black article of clothing to find a very naked, very blue body sauntering over to the bed. Jorge's clothes were always tight, that was the nature of being so big, but right now, they felt excruciatingly tight.

"I guess a distraction isn't always a bad thing," he muttered as he dumbly followed gorgeous blue alien to the bed.

Emile sauntered through the airlock of the Normandy, and his keen ears quickly picked up the delighted moans and screams of an asari matriarch one floor down. _Bout damn time Jorge._

"Joker how's my boat?" he asked the frail pilot sitting in the leather seat at the forefront of bridge.

"Just another day and this baby is space worthy Commander, but that doesn't mean it'll be combat ready."

"Yeah, call me if you need more ducktape for the hull, and make the stealth systems a priority, I have a feeling this boat's gonna be used for spying on geth fleet movements, and is the matriarch's room locked?"

Joker looked baffled at the sudden change in conversation, "Uh-uh, yeah, it is, why?"

"Just making sure no one walks in on Benezia and Jorge," he said over his shoulder as he and Trip walked towards the CIC, leaving behind a very baffled, then smirking pilot.

"Don't even think about tapping into the surveillance in that room, Joker!" _Damn super soldier and his stupid super senses._

The Spartan looked over the current repairs on the holographic representation of the Normandy located in the big central terminal of the CIC. All the major hull breaches had been repaired, they were welding up the smaller breaches as he stood there, and they hadn't started putting the outer hull layer back on. They had torn it off to repair the inner hull, before fabricating a brand new outer hull for the stealth frigate. It appeared that Hackett had ordered silaris grade starship hull made out of a titanium vanadium alloy, _good, that'll help against any plasma weaponry._

It would be nearly a month before the weapon systems were fully repaired, and nearly two before the overworked slipspace drive would be given the green light. Honestly, the experts the Alliance sent to perform a check up on the drive had nowhere near the experience his resident quarian mechanic had repairing that thing.

He brought up the crew manifest and all their locations. Liara and Kaidan were dissecting a geth cloaking device in the labs, Jorge and Benezia were in the first mate's quarters, Wrex was sitting in the mess hall with a bottle of ryncol, Garrus and Ashley were both in the armory working on Jorge's plasma gun, and Tali was in engineering working on the slipspace core.

The Spartan frowned when he saw what the surveillance camera saw. He flipped on the audio and had it transmitted straight to a comm. link he quickly shoved in his ear just in time to listen to the argument she was currently having with the two Alliance eggheads over the slipspace drive.

"Look, I know you built this thing, but I have been keeping it together with ducktape and Joker's chewing gum for the past three weeks, I know what I'm doing with this thing!" Tali argued at the two scientists who insisted she keep her distance from the machine.

"Well, then I guess we'll have to have a little chat with the commander about divulging secrets to those who don't have the security clearance, now back away!"

"Now listen here you little bosh'tet! The Commander is the only reason you two are still alive, and the fact he trusted me to keep this thing together tells me that there is no way that anything about this is classified. He wouldn't just let me start tinkering with this thing if it was, not to mention the Commander is a spectre, he can do what he wants!"

"Listen you little suit rat, you think you can hide behind some big shot and steal all of the Alliance's secrets? Now that he's done needing you on this mission, your ass is hanging out in the wind."

Emile was getting ready to rush down there and intervene, but then he saw something that pleased him greatly. Adams and Kenneth Donnelly had heard the entire thing, and the younger man couldn't stop himself from decking the scientist that had dared call Tali a suit rat, breaking the egghead's nose.

The other scientist was about to call for help from one of the guards posted in engineering when Adams grabbed hold of his ear and twisted, "You shut up, and get off this ship before the Commander finds out what you called Tali, because then a broken nose is the least of your worries."

After the elderly engineer let go of the egghead, the scientist quickly looked to the marine posted on guard duty, who was laughing at the whole scene. _Goddamn fools are lucky Tali's such a sweetheart, or they really woulda been hurtin,_ the Spartan thought wryly.

He was about to check on the rest of the ship but was interrupted by his scaly companion who was trying to remind him that neither had eaten in quite a while, "All right Trip, let's go get some grub."

Just as the security cameras had predicted, Emile and Trip found Wrex in the mess hall nursing a bottle of ryncol. Emile cocked an eyebrow but didn't say anything as he walked over to the food stores, grabbing a chunk of frozen meat for the varren, and an MRE for himself.

The reptile quickly tore into the meat as the Spartan took off the mask and sat down opposite of Wrex, "What's the matter T-Wrex? Looks like you're trying to drown out somethin serious."

Wrex took another swig of the bottle before answering, "I'm trying to get drunk enough that I'll forget ever hearing Jorge and the asari ruttin' like wild nathaks."

"Damn, I thought I was the only one who could hear that," Emile admitted as he took a bite of what was supposed to be pepperoni pizza, "But if it's bothering you that much, why don't you just get off the ship? Or move to a different floor so you can't hear them?"

"Tried, still haunted by the sounds," the krogan responded before taking another healthy swig from the bottle, "and this is the only place where I've stored enough ryncol to make myself forget."

Emile laughed at the krogan's response, finding the reasoning suspect at best. It was far more likely that the krogan didn't care about the noise, but just wanted an excuse to get as drunk as possible. Usually, Emile would be bothered by this, especially on his ship, but considering the extraordinary circumstances, he wasn't bothered too much.

Emile finished his meal and was about to leave when he realized, he had absolutely nothing to do. He didn't have any meetings to go to, no missions to prepare for, at least, not right now, and he couldn't really risk walking around and running into Dr. Chakwas who was running a triage on the Presidium, so he sat back down and grabbed the bottle of ryncol from Wrex's hands and took a swig.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I first met Jun? Jun was a member of Noble Team, our sniper, to be exact."

"_oooooh, Goddess yessssssss,"_ a low throaty moan sounded from the room next to them.

Wrex looked at the wall, "Apparently she has."

Emile and Wrex kept a straight face for all of three seconds before they couldn't contain it anymore. They busted out laughing, causing Trip to look up in surprise at the huge human and large krogan who were trying to keep their insides, inside.

When they were finally calmed down, Emile began his story, "You remember that story I told you about the 'Flawless Cowboy'?"

"Of course, it was a tale worthy of getting drunk listening to it!"

"Yeah well, looks like you got a head start on me there big guy, but I'll catch up."

"Not if I drink it all first!" the krogan exclaimed as he moved to slam the bottle back, but had the bottle stolen from him before he could even tilt it back.

"HAH! Too slow! Anyway, me and the Flawless Cowboy were on this planet that had been occupied for a few weeks. Covvies had glassed about ninety percent of the planet, but they were holding off for some reason over this little patch of dirt."

"We had a squad of marines with us, but they didn't last long against the firepower of the squid heads. Anyway, I was behind the wheel of this rocket hog and was pulling up on our objective."

"Apparently HIGHCOM had sent a team of Spartan's to hold an LZ for the last of the civvy population. What the hell they were still doing down there, or why the Covvies had left them alive, I will never know."

"Anyway, me and Thom were about three clicks out from the LZ we were s'pose to help secure when three banshee's start tearin up the ground with plasma fire right next to us. We'd been running off and causing up a stir to distract the Covvie ground forces, see, and now that the good ole UNSC finally was putting together an evac fleet, we were pulling back to the LZ."

"But back to the story. Like I was sayin, banshee's overhead were harassing the shit out of us. The hog was already beat up pretty bad, so just one plasma bomb landing within fifteen feet would tear the poor machine apart, and the last evac pelican dusted off in ten minutes, so we couldn't sprint it, we needed that hog."

"The rocket turret in the back was long since empty, so the Cowboy was in the front seat, firing up into the sky with a DMR. Never missed a shot that one, at least not with his trusty rifle, but those .30 cals, they just pinged off the banshees' armor."

"A couple of close calls later, and the front axle was breaking down, and I mean fallin apart. Every now and then I could look in the rear view and watch pieces of metal spin down the road behind us."

"So this hogs already in the grave, someone just needed to shove some dirt on it and a banshee was about to do just that, when the one firing on us just disappears in a cloud of blazing plasma."

"Just as the scalding hot pieces drop to the ground, a cocky accented voice comes over the radio, saying somethin bout 'Apollo's got your back.'"

"Jun never got away with that nickname, but he had one hell of a steady hand. Four clicks out and he was popping banshees in their quarter sized weak spot as they performed every evasive number in the book."

"Well I finally met up with the annoying sonnava bitch who saved my life, found out his name was Jun."

Wrex looked up from the now empty bottle of ryncol, "That's it?"

"Yeah, not as good as the last story I told you, I know, but it did have a major impact on my life. From that point on it was me, Jun, and Thom, until we met lover boy in the other room, that is. That was a much better story, maybe I'll tell you some other time, eh?"

Wrex just shrugged as he looked over at the wall that the noises of very nasty lovemaking was coming from earlier, "I think they're done."

"Yeah, Jorge's been snoring for bout five minutes. How long where they at it?" Emile asked with a little bit of slur in his voice.

"Hm, about an hour before you showed up, then you had that lame ass story for about an hour, sooooo, two hours?" Wrex suggested before he rested his head on the table, and began snoring.

Emile narrowed his eyes at the krogan before checking the time on his omnitool, "Damn! Trip, bedtime!"

The next morning started for the Spartan III with his omnitool blinking. Groaning, the large man rolled over to check the time and the caller, _Damnit Anderson! Why are you calling me at eight in the morning! Don't I get a day off, or whatever?_

"This is SPARTAN A239, Captain Anderson what can I do for you?"

"It's what you can do for the Council son. They've called a meeting, and they want you, that other Spartan on your ship, and the matriarch, front and center," the cool, smooth voice of the Captain came over the comm. line.

Emile frowned, he figured the Council wanted to crucify Benezia, but the Captain never specified a name, "Sir, what matriarch?"

"Don't play coy with me kid. I don't like the implications any more than you, but these are orders."

"Yes sir," the Spartan muttered back.

After a quick shower and getting in his Alliance dress uniform, he headed towards Benezia's room, assuming the two were still in there. His sensitive ears weren't picking up any loud groaning or moaning from the room, so at least he wouldn't be interrupting their private time, but that didn't help Emile get over the fact he was probably delivering Benezia to her own public crucifixion.

He pounded his bare fist against the door, "Jorge, Benezia, open up!"

He heard some whispering, before the soft sound of bare feet growing closer. Emile straightened up as Benezia opened the door with just a robe wrapped around her and a gigantic smile plastered on her face.

"What can we do for you Commander?"

The Spartan sighed, "The Council's holding a session, forty five minutes, you, me and Jorge have been called up. The Council wants to meet with us."

It didn't take long for the intelligent, half naked, asari in front of him to put the pieces together, "Oh, I-I see. We'll be out shortly Commander."

Benezia shut the door and turned back to her bedmate as of last night, "Jorge-"

"I heard," the huge man rumbled as he fit his pants back on. Benezia just nodded at his curtness and began to dress as well. Fifteen minutes later she stood in a black dress, similar to the one she always wore under Saren, only without the head piece.

She was about to walk out the door when she was stopped by a large hand on her shoulder. The matriarch looked at the person the hand belonged to and smiled weakly, "Yes, Jorge?"

He didn't say anything, just wrapped her up in an embrace that left her feet dangling a few feet off the floor, and their lips pressed firmly together. After that display though, Benezia didn't really need to hear anything from the big man, the gesture said all she needed to know.

The two met up with Emile who was shoveling breakfast in his mouth, and started up to the Presidium, where the meeting would take place as the Council Chambers were currently full of radioactive debris and vacuum. Jorge quickly noticed the large varren following them, and eyed Emile who just shrugged in response. Jorge shook his head ruefully, _I hope the thing does something embarrassing, like peeing on a Councilor's leg._

Fortunately, the path had been cleared of any press or anyone with a camera for that matter. Emile didn't understand why people who were essentially secret agents could have their picture taken a thousand times and still expect to remain anonymous when undercover.

Right on schedule, the four arrived at a bridge on the Presidium that had, surprisingly, stayed intact. The two Spartans, the matriarch, and the large green varren arrived to Captain Anderson and Ambassador Udina standing in front of the Council.

"Ah, here they are," Udina's whiny voice sounded as the three people who were apparently being discussed walked up to the five people discussing them.

"Commander, now that you and your group are here we can begin," Tevos said.

"Commander, this meeting has been called to discuss two important topics, the first of which is the Council Seat we are prepared to offer the Human Systems Alliance," Sparatus informed the Spartan.

"Many human lives were lost in the process of defending the Citadel. Not to mention that we owe our very lives to the valiant crewmen who gave their lives in our defense," Valern continued. Emile noticed quickly that this was progressing with an almost ceremonial style.

"Which is why, on this day, we, the Council, will grant a Council Seat to the Human Systems Alliance," Tevos finished.

Emile raised his hand, and Sparatus sighed, "Yes Commander?"

"Uh, that's great and all, but why did I have to be here for that?"

"You are here because humanity will need someone to fill that seat, and your word would influence the people's decision greatly," Tevos informed him.

"Me?" Emile asked, _why me? I'm just a fuckin grunt!_

"Whether I like it or not, you are the figurehead of humanity, Commander," Udina growled, which got Trip's attention, "Every human in the galaxy knows your name, damn near every human knows of every word that has come out of your mouth in public," _that's bad news for little kids everywhere,_ "and that means that your nomination would have a great impact on who gets to sit on the Council for humanity."

Emile was thinking his answer over very carefully when the ambassador made eye contact with the massive reptile sitting at the Spartan's heel. Judging by the way it bared its teeth, the varren didn't think much of the ambassador. The reptilian dog was not taking kindly to the weak little mammal threatening his pack leader. Trip may not know what the ambassador said, but the tone was unmistakable.

Jorge had to keep himself from smiling as he saw the ambassador pale at Trip's glare. He glanced at the beautiful asari standing next to him and felt that spike of warmth he had begun feeling every time he looked at her now. He was worried for her, and was prepared to protect her which made the Spartan wonder when the hell he had gotten so protective. There wasn't anything he could do to protect her from her reputation's execution, but he felt like he needed to try anyway. Such feelings confused the usually unemotional Spartan, but made him feel good nonetheless.

Jorge's internal musings where interrupted by Emile suddenly saying, "Captain Anderson."

"W-what?!" Udina exclaimed, "Surely you can't be serious. He's not a politician!"

"Exactly. I hate the only politician I've ever had an extended conversation with, and that's you. As far as I'm concerned the Captain's a way better choice than a whiny little…" Emile glanced at the Council, "female canine, like you!"

The Council watched amusedly at the spectacle Emile had just made out of the ambassador before Tevos said, "Very well, we have it on record that your nomination is Captain Anderson, now onto the second piece of business."

Emile looked back at his two teammates he had brought along at the Council's request, "I assume this is why you had me bring Matriarch Benezia and Chief Warrant Officer Jorge 052 with me."

"That is correct, Commander. We've read the reports, and while we are glad Benezia was able to free herself from Saren's control and ultimately help you save our lives, she betrayed the Council, and that cannot go unpunished," Valern explained.

"Yes, treason is usually punished via death," Sparatus continued, "but under the circumstances, we have concluded that if she remain outside of Citadel Space, then she won't have to be executed."

Emile looked up sharply at the turian Councilor, "You mean she'll be exiled?"

"That is correct Commander," Tevos said, "I wish there were another way Benezia, but these are the two choices you are left with."

Benezia held her head up, "Very well, I accept these conditions. I believe I still have quite a large estate on Ilium, provided I still have access to them."

"Of course Matriarch," Tevos answered, "Now onto you."

Jorge shifted a little bit as he fell under the blue woman's gaze. Due to his bond with Benezia, he knew more about Councilor Tevos than she would probably be comfortable with. In fact, he knew many dark secrets about all three of the Councilors.

Having nearly every advantage when it came down to any confrontation, Jorge started off with a gruff, simpleton response of, "Yeah, what do you want?"

"We already have one person from your universe, are you familiar with your unique situation?" the turian councilor, Sparatus, asked.

"Why yes I am," was all they got in response.

"You have three options in front of you," the salarian councilor told him, "You can join the Systems Alliance, or you can become a spectre like your comrade. It is obvious you have the skill set necessary to become a spectre, in fact, you likely outclass any other candidate or current spectre out there."

The asari councilor laid out the third option, "Or, you can become a civilian. Goddess knows you've earned a retirement if what the file the Commander provided us with is correct."

Jorge's mind raced, if he went to the HSA, he probably would have to start over, go to boot camp, get trained in Alliance military protocol, but he'd be around humans. But as he thought about it, that didn't really appeal to him as much as it would have. His time with Benezia has obviously had an impact on him, so being a spectre or civilian both were open to him.

At first thought, being a civilian stung him. He was a soldier, a tool God damnit! As a civilian he wouldn't be able to function, there wouldn't be anything there but a gun in his mouth, _or Benezia,_ he realized.

Jorge opened his mouth to answer…

**LOLS, cliffhanger, and not even a good one. I gotta say, when I give my imagination some time to recharge, I can really pump out a chapter quickly. I wrote this all in just under three hours!**

**Obviously you have a question posed and I expect an answer! What should Jorge do!? Should he be a civvy and just spend his time banging Benezia? Or should he be a high ranking officer in the HSA's military and only bang Benezia on shore leave. Or should he be a spectre, and I honestly hope you don't pick that one because I don't want him to be one. I'm hoping for the HSA's officer route, mostly because then I can put him as captain of the super secret, super awesome ship the turians and humans are building?**

**As always, please review, I don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	26. Another Shocking Twist!

**Another chapter of this mediocre story many people call, Mass Emile, has been finished. So far one game has been completed, but now Emile must wait a whole two years before the author can give enough f***'s to start the next one. The audience only has to wait a couple of weeks until I start the second game, but that guy has to wait two years!**

**Anyway, now that my little moment of schizophrenic insanity has passed, I can tell you about this chapter. Jorge zooms through Alliance training, and already has command of his own squad, who will be taking care of some of the side missions while Emile takes care of others. Also, the first member of the Freak Show takes their leave at the end of this episode.**

**Now that I'm done typing in bold, sit up and read the gorram story.**

After the Battle of the Citadel, the Human System's Alliance began the monumental task of wiping out the rest of the geth presence in Citadel Space. Geth ships were powerful, something to be feared by any fleet willing to take them on, but ultimately no match for the Alliance's powerful new dreadnaughts that had been debuted at the Battle of the Citadel. Even geth dreadnaughts were no match for the powerful weapons these eight hundred meter behemoths carried.

In just three months, every system within three Relay jumps were cleared of the mechanical menace, and now it was time to move in on the Skyllian Verge.

After the HSA had been given their Council Seat, they had quickly turned themselves into a war machine. Other species may not want to believe that Reapers where real, but Councilor Anderson had seen Sovereign shatter the most powerful fleet in the galaxy, he had seen the video footage of Emile's 'chat' with the monster, and he had had an extensive private conversation with a Prothean VI known as Vigil, he knew what was coming, and he was going to make damn sure that at least the HSA was ready.

It boggled the human Councilor to no end how the other Councilors could have all this evidence staring them in the face, and believe it was all concocted by Saren to get the geth on his side. First of all, Sovereign looked nothing like a geth ship, was made out of completely different materials, and used technology far beyond even them. Then there was Vigil, who was dismissed as a malfunctioning prothean VI that Saren programmed to tell everyone it met about the Reapers. And finally, they dismissed the helmet recording taken by the man they owed their lives to twice over, as yet another part of the elaborate hoax by Saren.

In the end, only the HSA was preparing for an all out war, something that worried the other members of the Council to no end. The HSA had already had huge ship building plants all over their territory, but since they didn't have the right to the amount of resources they had now, the ship building plants had been left unused. Now they were turning out ships faster than any other Council species could dream of.

The new ships were being pumped out in a matter of weeks, rather than months or years, and with technology that didn't rely on mass effect fields. Five days after the Battle of the Citadel, a large fleet of cargo ships led by the SSV Normandy found, scavenged, and reverse engineered a massive Covenant ship graveyard, the same one Jorge hitched a ride on. It was standard issue for every ship the Alliance manufactured to have a slipspace drive for emergency fast response actions. Only dreadnaughts, however, were equipped with point defense pulse laser turrets, and only capital ships were equipped with the experimental, and still slightly flawed, plasma torpedo launchers.

Despite the tendency to overheat and fail, the plasma torpedo weapons systems have provided turning points in several key battles that took place in turian space. The torpedoes proved capable of not only bypassing kinetic barriers, but even incinerating any ship of a frigate profile or smaller. Not even the heavily armored dreadnaughts could withstand even a single plasma torpedo, especially since each one is programmed to seek out hostile IFF's and then target the corresponding mass effect field. The result is the destruction of the enemy ships core, and the corresponding destruction of the ship itself.

The turian's were, quite honestly and openly, jealous of the human's newfound power, as they were the only reason the geth were pushed out of turian space. Rumors were circulating throughout both militaries that the Primarch and the President were in talks about an exchange of technology.

The Normandy was once again on the cutting edge of the technological field. After the Battle of the Citadel, the Normandy had received an overhaul, mostly just upgrading the hull plating and recalibrating the weapons systems, but after the ship had led the fleet of cargo ships to the wreck of the Long Night of Solace and the Ardent Prayer, the stealth frigate had received a new batch of technology.

Plasma shields provided a secondary layer of defense beneath the ships kinetic barriers and the inner set of plasma cannons had been replaced to fire smaller, but faster, plasma torpedoes than what a dreadnaught could. But by far the most impressive piece of technology was the ships cloaking field. The technology had been recovered from the super carrier Long Night of Solace, but the version sitting in the Normandy's seemingly overcrowded engineering deck was pried off of a phantom gunship and reengineered to cover the Normandy.

Tali was practically drooling over all of the bleeding edge technology installed on the Normandy, while Garrus, to Ashley's annoyance, spent more time calibrating the shiny new guns than with his human girlfriend. Ashley would have been far angrier with the turian, had the Alliance not also stocked the Normandy with an experimental plasma rifle.

The Alliance's new plasma rifle didn't look like its Covenant counterpart, but more like an actual rifle. It had a long smooth barrel designed to magnetically launch the plasma out the end, and a holographic targeting system above the plasma generator which sat just in front of an in body handle. The whole thing was a matte black and the holographic targeting interface glows a soft orange. It could fire a hundred rounds per battery, though one would have to fire in short burst to prevent overheating, and one could easily swap batteries once the one inside has been depleted. It fired at over nine hundred rounds per minute, and when one holds down the trigger it releases a 'storm' of plasma, hence the name, Storm rifle.

It wasn't going to replace mass accelerator weaponry any time soon, but it did provide special operations soldiers a step up from their enemies, and any special operations soldier needs as many advantages as they can, as they go into every situation outnumbered and deep in enemy territory.

Wrex was enjoying a new toy he had managed to salvage from the Covenant wreck, a brute gravity hammer. The krogan had been playing with it non-stop, even to the point of begging Tali to find a way to recharge it, and bribing Emile to let him take it on missions. The first was easier, Tali just didn't have it in her heart to deny anyone anything, but Emile had been adamant that Wrex just didn't have the space to carry both Dragon's Breath and the gravity hammer along on missions. That required yet another trip to Tali to once again beg for the quarians help.

The result was a hammer where the handle could collapse in on itself and be a one handed mace if necessary, or collapsing all the way into the hammer's head. Wrex went before Emile and was ready to grovel if he had to, but fortunately for him, Emile had quickly green lighted the weapon for missions.

Another piece of equipment Tali spent a great deal of time on was Emile's armor. While she was not as brilliant in the sciences as Catherine Halsey who had designed the armor, she was more than capable of building a MJOLNIR from blueprints, and even adding a few new features, most notably the nacelles on his back that could act as a jetpack in low gravity environments, or stabilizers during a fall. The entire armor looked sleeker than before, and the gel layer had been improved to provide better protection and acted like a secondary synthetic muscular system, making Emile just a little stronger than he was before.

In his old armor, Emile could lift maybe three times his own weight, which was around one and a half tons, now he could lift nearly two tons in his new armor. Thanks to the advanced plasma fusion generator in his back, the Spartan had access to a plethora of advanced sensors cool gadgets that his old armor couldn't support. His visor can switch between three different visions: thermal, night, and advanced IFF and life sign detection, or X-ray as Emile called it.

Basically, the advanced IFF and life sign detection vision spots the radio signals that IFF's put off and the specific electronic signals all organic muscles put off, and displays them against a see through blue print of the current environment that is transmitted by the Normandy's sensor grid, provided the Normandy is in position of course.

Another addition to the visor was made by Emile, rather than Tali. The Spartan had insisted that the visor hold the EVA quality his old visor had, so that he could 'write his signature on it.' Indeed there was Emile's signature look carved into the outer resin of the helmet. It looked just like the old carving, and took a month of meticulously carving before he went to bed every night.

The look had become so famous throughout Citadel space that nearly every thrift store in the Wards sold tee-shirts with a skull on the front, which was good news for the Spartan, because the more people associated that skull with him, the easier it will be for him to move anonymously without any armor on.

The Spartan was currently suiting up in said armor; his team had a mission, "T-Wrex, you ready for some fun?"

The scarred krogan smiled as he played with his new hammer, "Can't wait to test this baby out on some robots!"

"Yeah, well don't disobey any orders just cause you wanna bust some heads. Your primary purpose on the battle field is suppressive fire," Emile warned as he slid his helmet on with armored fingers.

Wrex snorted, "I know that, but I also know you want to keep everyone happy if you can. Once we get somewhere close quarters, I'll bet you an entire bottle of ryncol you tell me to whip this baby out!"

Emile smirked behind his helmet, "Actually you and I won't be on the same squad for this one," Wrex looked up, worried that he might not get to come along, "Don't worry, you'll get plenty of action, I'll explain at the briefing."

Wrex nodded and the two bigger members of the Freak Show shuffled into the comm. room to discuss the mission with the other five, who were already inside. Tali was fiddling with her Eviscerator, Kaidan and Liara were warming their biotics up by disassembling a puzzle and putting it back together with their minds, Ashley was playing with the settings on her Reach assault rifle, and Garrus was calibrating the scope on his sniper rifle.

"Alright Freaks, listen up!"

"What did he call us?" Tali whispered.

"It was just something to get our attention," Ashley whispered back.

"HEY! I said listen up!" Emile shouted at the two, "We've got four planets in the Armstrong Nebula where the geth are staging an army. Looks like they're gonna make a resurgence into the Verge. Our job is to wipe out three of the bases, while a second team takes care of the fourth."

"We will split into three teams; Claws will lead Elvis and T-Wrex against the repair facility on Antibaar. The repair facility will most likely have plenty of dropships providing air support for the base, so take the grizzly. T-Wrex will carry a five kiloton bomb, non-nuclear, and plant it in the base's main reactor, I expect Claws to provide sniper support from high ground while Elvis protects T-Wrex and makes sure he gets there."

"The second team will be led by Cheeks, take Li and Q-ball with you. Your target is the manufacturing plant on Casbin. Intel says it's a factory for geth troopers. There's a lot of raw materials on Casbin so that makes sense. Stealth is going to be optional, they may be producing geth troopers, but they don't have the actual geth there to run em. Same plan as with Antibaar, Q-ball will take the five kiloton bomb to the main reactor, Cheeks and Li will cover her. Oh, and take Trip."

"You have your assignments, get ready we'll be at Casbin in an hour," Emile looked to see Ashley raising her hand, "Yes Cheeks?"

"What about you sir?"

"There's a space station orbiting a planet called Maji, the Normandy will take me in, and then I will start killing everything we come across."

"How big is the space station?" Tali asked, interested in the geth's engineering abilities.

"About five kilometers by five by five."

"That's suicide! There's gotta be ten thousand geth in there!" Kaidan exclaims.

"I suspect the vast majority of the platforms will be busy doing damage control from the Alliance fighters sneaking a ride with us, so at the most it'll only be a couple hundred geth I'll have to face," Emile explained clinically, as though a half thousand geth was what he ate for breakfast.

The Spartan looked at his team looking for any more questions, seeing none, he told them, "Get ready, we'll be dropping you off in an hour. When you've completed your objective, run for the hills and activate your distress beacon. The Normandy will high tail it to your location and get you outta there. Dismissed!"

An hour later and twenty five Alliance dreadnaughts and an escort fleet of over three hundred cruisers and frigates engaged the geth fleet as they jumped in through the relay. The Onager MAC cannons ripped through the most powerful kinetic barriers the seven hundred strong geth fleet could muster, and plasma torpedoes cored ships as heavily armored as a dreadnaught with a single round.

The Alliance fleet was not without its own losses however, as the geth's powerful Thanix cannons pummeled cruiser's kinetic barriers and ate through their armor. From a distance, the two fleets looked like opposing collections of pinpoints of light, and every few seconds one of the points of light would flash brightly, before darkening. More lights flashed out on the geth's side than the Alliance's side, however the staggering numbers of the geth fleet managed to push the human fleet back through the relay.

Not that the humans saw this as a defeat, distraction was their job as a few light years away the Normandy was slipping past the depleted defense fleets above three different planets, while what appeared to be a rogue asteroid deposited three inconspicuous meteors towards the surface of the fourth.

Ashley and her team were the first team dropped off from the Normandy. The Alliance marine was behind the wheel of the warthog, Tali was manning the gauss cannon, and Liara was operating the sensor grid equipped on the vehicle.

"Okay ladies," Ashley said to the all female team, "We got the head start, and I want to make the most out of it, there's no way the boys are beating us!"

"Since when did this become a competition?" Liara asked from her seat.

"Since Wrex told me your butt was getting bigger Liara!"

"He said WHAT!?" Liara screeched, infuriated that the krogan would say something so awful about her, it wasn't like she wasn't exercising! There just haven't been as many missions lately.

Ashley smirked under her helmet, Wrex had never said any such thing, and she couldn't pin this on Kaidan with good conscience, so the krogan was going to have a very angry asari to deal with later.

The warthog flew over a hill looking down into a valley, or, at least, where a valley would have been provided the very large, very white, and very loud manufacturing plant hadn't been there. Pushing down the slopes, the warthog's sensors son acknowledged the presence of targeting lasers, the geth knew they were here.

"Light em up Tali!" Ashley ordered as she swerved to avoid the first rocket. A resounding BOOM answered her order, and she could see the ball of fire where a geth operated point defense turret once was.

"Ashley-"

"Call me Chief while we're on a mission, Liara!"

"Chief, there is a structural weak point where the valley rises up to meet one of the support structures."

"A door?" BOOM! Another turret exploded, and the fire raining down on the warthog was cut considerably.

"I believe so, though it may take more than the gauss turret to blast through!"

The warthog swerved to avoid another rocket, "That's okay, look in the other seat Liara, and point that big bastard at the door!"

"Goddess," Liara exclaimed as she looked the massive weapon over. It was bigger than most shoulder mounted heavy weapons, sported a yellow paint job, and had a radiation warning sticker slapped on as an afterthought.

"What is this thing?"

"Emile called it a Cain launcher. Don't worry about the radiation sticker, that's just a joke," Tali explained.

"What does it do?" BOOM! An armature that had been deployed to deal with the intruders shuddered as the half pound slug ripped through the main body and tore the majority of the inner workings with it.

"Emile and Kaidan designed it, it fires a slug filled with C12…"

"C12?"

"Something from Emile's universe, three times as powerful as C4," Ashley answered for Tali.

"Right, anyway, it fires the slug using a powerful mass accelerator to combine the kinetic and explosive force of the slug. I programmed the software so that if you fire the slug from a distance, it can actually track a target."

"That means you don't have to be spot on with your aim, though you do want to be close, we'll be within four hundred yards when it hits!" Ashley yelled over the roar of the engine as she sped up just enough for a well aimed plasma burst to fly over their heads and hit the ground behind them.

Liara sat up in her seat and poked the end of the Cain launcher over the windshield. She pulled the trigger and held as a red glow gathered at the front of the weapon until it all released. The kickback drove the asari back in her seat and knocked the wind out of her.

Ashley watched the white streak race towards the hidden door in the support strut of the base, but had to turn her head when it hit. The slug exploded exactly one, one millionth of a second after the slug impacted the sleek metal door. The kinetic force would have been enough to punch a hole a man could fit through, but the C12 vaporized a good portion of the door before sending the rest of the steel flying in various directions.

Ashley swerved to avoid a piece of debris caused by the pure white explosion and drove the truck into the opening. Remarkably, the insides were relatively unharmed compared to the outside, not that that was saying much. There were half incinerated platforms against the far wall, obviously thrown there from the explosion, while other platforms lay in a dozen pieces all around the room.

The room itself ended in an industrial elevator that led into the main manufacturing plant. Ashley parked the hog in the center of the room and told the rest of the team to get out of the hog. That was when the fourth member of the team decided to make himself known.

"Ugh, Trip, get off of me!" Liara screeched when the varren tackled her to the ground in his haste to get out of the vehicle.

"Aw, leave the poor poochie alone! He's just antsy to kill some geth, aren't you boy?" Ashley said in her best imitation of baby talk.

"If he's excited to kill geth, then he's alright with me," Tali said, pumping her Eviscerator.

Liara scoffed at the quarian, "Easy for you to say, you can't actually get his slobber all over your face."

Tali just laughed at her while she pet Trip, while Ashley pointed something interesting out for the whole group, "Do my ears deceive me or was that a contraction in that sentence?"

Liara blushed, as though using a contraction was something to be embarrassed about, "Kaidan has had an influence on me."

"I'll say, now come on ladies, and Trip, we got some geth ass to kick!"

Half a light year away and about twenty minutes prior, geth sensors at a ground side repair station were detecting a radar contact. This confused the geth programs in the base, for visual sensors detected nothing in that area. Audio sensors confirmed the radar contact, and the geth consensus could 'hear' the roar of a ship's engines, yet there was no visual contact. The ability to visually conceal a frigate size vessel while in flight was an impossibility to the geth consensus, therefore the idea of a cloaked ship approaching was dismissed, right up until a grizzly class tank appeared out of thin air and landed one mile outside of the repair facility.

Any further thought of a cloaked ship was dismissed by the consensus as the geth ordered the dozen armatures and four colossi defending the installation to engage the hostile transport.

THUD…BANG!

"AHAHAHAHA!" Wrex bellowed as an armature exploded four hundred yards to the one o'clock, "I love this gun!"

Kaidan and Garrus smiled at the krogan's antics while the grizzly barreled down the canyon towards the facility's ground entrance. The grizzly wasn't nearly as fast as the warthog, but was easily capable of one hundred kilometers an hour, and Kaidan was pushing for every last bit of speed.

Garrus was operating the far more sophisticated sensor array of the grizzly and was the first to spot the three dropships armed with an underbelly GARDIAN laser cannon approaching, "Wrex, shift your aim to twelve o'clock, thirty degrees up!"

Wrex did as he was told, and grinned when he spotted the gunships approaching.

THUD…BANG!

The lead gunship fell from the sky in a smoldering heap. The other two, not keen on sharing their counterpart's fate, split, giving Wrex two distinct targets and not enough time to get both of them before they enter firing range.

In response, Kaidan made the grizzly an erratic target at sixty miles an hour. Unfortunately, that meant Wrex was having one hell of a time tracking even the one gunship, "Damn it human, keep this thing steady so I can get a shot off!"

Garrus snorted and grabbed the krogan by his stubby tail and pulled him from the turret, "Krogan, let me show you how a turian gets things done."

GARDIAN laser fire erupted around the tank, incinerating dirt in invisible ultraviolet radiation. Kaidan strained to keep the tank from flipping as he pulled another sharp turn to avoid a burst of invisible laser fire.

Garrus zoned out all of the distractions, focusing on the gunship to the tank's left. He watched as it tried to pull along a parallel path, giving the turian marksman his best shot.

THUD…BANG!

The dropship vaporized as its core breached and exploded, "HAH! See that Wrex?"

"Yeah, yeah, shut up turian!"

Garrus practically giggled as he brought he rail gun to bear on the last gunship. He went through the same process, zoning out distractions, timing the shot, and…

THUD…

The shot went right over the gunship, not even grazing the kinetic barriers of the ship. Garrus looked on, stunned. He never missed a shot! EVER!

Of course Wrex noticed the missed shot immediately, "AHAHAHAHAHAHA! That is just too damn perfect!"

"Sorry Garrus! that was probably the armature I was running over."

_Yes, of course. It wasn't _my_ fault I missed, it was Kaidan's,_ the distraught turian attempted to calm himself as he took aim at the gunship again.

THUD…BANG!

This time the shot went true, coring the gunship and sending it to the ground in a fiery ball of metal.

"Hey Garrus, the entrance is up ahead but it looks like the geth aren't gonna let us in. How bout you knock?"

The turian smirked as he swung the powerful railgun towards the door just a mere quarter mile away, and closing fast.

THUD…BANG!

Steel shrapnel flew in a thousand different directions as the door sported a gaping hole in the middle. Garrus frowned, worried that the hole wouldn't be big enough to fit the grizzly in and that they'd have to walk into the enemies vehicle bay. Fortunately, the railgun had ripped the door from its track, and the steel slab fell back, crushing a number of geth looking to close of the hole in the door.

The grizzly shot into the garage, point defense turrets firing on nearby troopers, and quickly parked itself in front of a doorway leading deeper into the base. Garrus slid out from the turret and exchanged places with Kaidan.

"Okay, according to the Normandy's scans, you guys are going to have to push to the top level, get on top of the base where I can provide sniper support. There's a hatch, just big enough for a krogan in heavy battle armor that leads straight to the reactor. Plant the bomb and get back here, I'll be waiting."

The marine and the battlemaster just nodded as the latter was the first out of the hatch, swinging his new toy, "HRAGH!"

The trooper who was the first live test of the gravity hammer simply shattered under the powerful blow. The gravitational distortion field ripped armor from its place before the hammer even made contact, and the hammer itself tore through the synthetic piece by piece.

Three light years away, over a planet called Rayingri, three meteors smashed into a mountain range just south of an ExoGeni research outpost. At first the three meteorites smoldered in their respective craters, until the first one showed cracks along its rocky exterior before breaking off and revealing a metal casket with a small window showing a maroon visor.

Lieutenant Commander Jorge 052 punched the release button inside his drop pod. Small explosives lining the inside of the door went off, throwing the steel door away from the pod and letting the giant Spartan out.

Jorge grabbed his weapon from the ceiling of his pod before jumping out to check on his two teammates. The weapon was essentially a lighter version of Dragon's Breath, or a beefed up version of the Reach, and was basically an assault rifle to the Spartan. The Revenant, a name that both Spartan's were against, could fire approximately eighty rounds per ammo block, and sported the same inner cycling system as Dragon's Breath. Instead of using the traditional sand grain sized projectile, the Revenant used larger rounds at slower speeds to increase the mushroom effect and deliver more internal damage to the enemy.

The weapons design was an answer to the husks the geth used, and since Intel spotted Dragon's Teeth just outside of the ExoGeni research facility, it was likely the team was going to be facing husks.

Jorge walked up to the first pod, whose rocky exterior had finally broken away, and checked on the man inside, "Hey kid, you okay?"

Lieutenant Richard Jenkins just nodded, not trusting an open mouth to not spew vomit all over the interior of the pod. Jorge moved away from the door, and Jenkins activated the release. The marine immediately leaned over the edge of the pod and spewed his meager breakfast over the terrain.

"Ha! Don't worry kid, it gets easier after the first few drops."

Jenkins just glared up at the Spartan, much to Jorge's amusement, and reached up to grab the only other prototype of the Storm rifle in existence, the other being on the Normandy. As soon as he grabbed it the software in his N7 standard issue helmet with a rebreather synced with the software in the advanced plasma shooter. A reticule immediately appeared where the barrel of the weapon was pointing, and the charge count for the plasma battery flashed into existence above his left eye.

"HEY VEGA! YOU IN THERE!?" Jenkins looked up to see Jorge smashing against the other pod, which hadn't yet released its rocky shell.

Jenkins keyed his comms, "Vega, I don't care if you pissed your pants, you still have to come along!"

"But MOOOM!"

"But nothing! Get your ass out here marine!" Jenkins snapped back. Soon the rock surrounding the pod began to crack as thermite ate it from the inside out. The marine had no idea how, but the Alliance eggheads had managed to make the rocky layer resist burning up on reentry, but susceptible to thermite.

Soon Vega hopped out of the pod with his shiny new shotgun in hand. After the Battle of the Citadel, geth weapons had been found lying all around for anyone to take, and the Alliance had managed to procure approximately a dozen of the geth's new plasma shotgun. It was still powered by mass effect technology, and relied on a field of super charged projectiles to create the plasma so kinetic barriers were still effective security measures, but the weapon was devastating enough.

"All right marines, we've wasted enough time as it is. We've got a research base to clear, and we're gonna have to hoof it the rest of the way," Jorge barked at the two marines.

The two smaller humans jumped to attention and followed the Spartan through the low mountain range. They had landed just inside, and it was only two kilometers to the research outpost, but the rocky terrain made the men pay for every step they took.

Finally, a half hour later, the group was stealthily making their way towards the research facility's entrance.

Jorge moved up and pointed his Revenant straight at the door and nodded to Jenkins who was flat against the wall with his hand on the controls. The door slid open… nothing.

Jorge motioned for Vega to take point and followed the smaller man inside with Jenkins taking the rear. The first room of the underground prefab shelter was empty, just a storage locker and some plants to provide oxygen.

Jorge scrutinized the room for every detail. Blood on the walls indicated that some researchers attempted to resist the geth, and paid for their courage with their lives. It was obvious that all the transformations took place outside, considering the trail of blood leading out the door behind them. A series of footprints on the blood in the room lead straight into the main room of the subterranean prefab.

Jorge jerked his head at Jenkins, who moved up to open the first door of the barrier between the first room and the main room. No husks were inside, and Jenkins moved up to the next door.

The marine looked back to Jorge, who nodded. The door flew open and… nothing, yet again. Jorge was about to move into the room when Vega held a hand up.

"Wait," he whispered, "I saw this in a zombie movie."

Jenkins rolled his eyes but Jorge watched intently as Vega picked a thermal clip out of his belt and tossed it against a medical station at the far end of the room. As soon as the small thermal conductor struck the metal station a soulless moaning could be heard throughout the room.

The three soldiers watched as nearly twenty husks staggered up to the medical station. Jorge was fairly impressed before ordering, "LIGHT EM UP!"

The Revenant spat rounds out at the mechanical zombies, chewing them apart. The larger rounds struck blue/gray skin and burrowed through, ripping a good chunk of the inner workings out with it. The larger rounds were obviously doing what they were designed to; cause as much internal damage as possible. Husks dropped from the awesome firepower of the large assault rifle.

The husks scattered as they each took different routes to attack the three marines, allowing Jenkins to flip the holographic safety switch on his Storm rifle and turn it to a three round burst.

ZATATAT!

The plasma burned two inch wide holes straight through the first husk, two in the chest and the third bore straight through the abominations skull. Jenkins immediately fell in love with the weapon. Aiming down the sights at medium range was unnecessary thanks to the reticule on his HUD, and the powerful rifle killed husks with three shots every single time.

In just under two minutes every husk in the large, cluttered room was clear. And Vega wasn't happy about it.

"Aw come on! I didn't even get to use my new shotgun!"

"Then you shouldn't have gathered all of the husks in one place so Jenkins and I could get em. Now let's move," Jorge ordered.

The marines quickly moved to the buffer halls separating the main room from the bunks where the researchers would sleep, that is, if they still slept. Jenkins popped the door and a rush of husks poured out. This time Vega was allowed to use his shotgun, and to devastating effect.

The plasma from the geth weapon doesn't burn as hot as the plasma from the Storm rifle, but hot enough to melt through a husk while the sheer force of the projectiles flung the zombie back into its friends.

Once again the husks proved to be no challenge to the ruthless soldiers, and the battle was over in seconds, five husks lay on the floor leaking white fluid, while two marines and a Spartan stood over them, dripping in white fluid.

"Let's check the other rooms for husks, be prepared, I don't think the geth abandoned this place yet," Jorge warned.

"Yeah, so far this has been too easy; I wonder how the other two teams are doing?"

Back on Casbin with Ashley, Liara, Tali, and Trip, pulse rifle fire peppered the teams cover.

"Tali! How much further to the main reactor?" Ashley yelled as she primed and tossed a grenade at the geth destroyer keeping them pinned. The grenade went off and so did the geth's leg, leaving it an easy target for an opportunistic varren.

"Twenty meters! Should be right through that door!" Tali yelled back. The quarian had a five kiloton, non-nuclear, explosive strapped to her back and a shotgun gripped firmly in her hands. The bomb was heavy, and she wasn't sure why Emile had decided that the two hundred pound explosive should be carried by the scrawny quarian, but she had managed to keep up so far.

Three geth troopers hopped out of cover simultaneously to replace the downed destroyer. A blue field appeared in front of them though, and smashed the machines against the wall behind them.

"Good work Liara! Okay team, let's get that bomb in there and get out!"

One geth attempted to stall them, but found itself on the floor, getting his spine ripped out by powerful reptilian jaws.

"Good boy!" Tali did her best to imitate behavior she had seen when the humans interacted with the varren. Trip apparently enjoyed the attention, and brought a long pink tongue to swipe her face plate.

"ACK! Keelah! It's in the olfactory filters! I can't stop the smell! Trip your breath is terrible!"

Liara cackled gleefully as Tali finally understood what it was like to get licked in the face by the large varren. Ashley shook her head at her team's antics, "Ladies, let's go!"

The reactor room was surprisingly barren of geth. There were no consoles either, which made sense considering the geth could fix any technical issues with their software rather than hardware. The bomb was primed and the group was sprinting for the warthog in less than a minute. Trip would simply tackle and rip apart an geth that tried to stop them, as he was easily capable of catching up with the slower two legs.

Soon the warthog was racing up the valley, away from the manufacturing plant as Tali began a countdown, "Five…four…three…two…one…"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM!

The warthog had just reached the safety of the other side of the mountain when the bomb went off, protecting them from the earth shattering explosion and shockwave. That didn't prevent the ground from shaking beneath them and tossing the warthog down the slope.

Later, the three women and one varren were grouped around a trashed warthog. Trip had ditched first, rolling along with the ground and digging his claws in to stabilize himself as he watched the women get thrown from the spinning hog. Tali had, quite amazingly, gotten away from the wreck without a single suit rupture, though she most likely had more than a few broken ribs and bruised bones.

The other two women were doing no better, but by far the victim in this situation was the warthog, "Emile's going to kill us!"

"Don't worry Liara; he'll most likely only kill me. He'll probably just torture you two, and Trip will get a nice juicy chunk of meat," Ashley 'comforted' Tali.

Half a light-year away, things weren't goin much better for the three men on Antibaar.

"Prime! Coming up on your five o'clock!"

"Then shoot the fucker, turian!" Wrex yelled.

The krogan and his human companion Kaidan were on the roof of the repair facility. Docked at the repair facility was one cruiser and three frigates, even under attack, the geth don't stop doing their jobs.

CRACK!...CRACK!

After two precise shots from his overpowered sniper rifle, the geth prim chasing Garrus' teammates fell with a brand new hole in its head.

"Okay the hatch is twelve meters in front of you, get down there, charge the bomb, and get out of there!"

"Oh, now is that the plan Garrus? I though the plan was to bake the geth a cake!" Kaidan said sarcastically as he ran over to the hatch and popped it open.

"Hold on, human. Let me try something a little outside the plan," Wrex said. The krogan activated the timer on the bomb, threw Kaidan out of the way, and dropped it, "We should probably go."

"Oh no, ya think?!"

Garrus, upon seeing what Wrex had done, was already racing towards the facility in the grizzly. The turian checked the timer Wrex had set on the bomb. _Two minutes? That's all you Spirits damned krogan?_

Garrus activated the thrusters on the powerful tank, landing directly in front of his two teammates, "Get in!"

Both human and krogan jumped into the spacious tank without a second thought while Garrus punched the throttle. _Come on, come on!_ Garrus thought as he watched the timer on the grizzly's dash. Less than thirty seconds remained to get behind the hills surrounding the repair facility.

"Garrus! Hit the red button!" Kaidan screamed.

"What?!" There was a red button, but it was unlabeled.

"JUST DO IT!"

Garrus did it. On the rear end of the grizzly two large thrusters turned to face back… and belched out black smoke.

"It didn't do anything!"

Kaidan kicked the console and the thrusters ignited, blasting them forward at over two hundred miles per hour. The tank got over the mountain, and a lot further by the time the bomb exploded. Just like Casbin, the ground shook and the air was split with an earth shattering roar.

The tank would have been jostled by the ground shaking, had the tank not been doing its best impression of the Normandy.

"Kaidan! How in the name of the Spirits do I shut this thing off?"

"We have to wait until it runs out of fuel!" Kaidan yelled back at the turian.

In answer, the rockets ran out of fuel and the tank promptly nose dived for thirty feet before beginning a flipping routine. The tank did land wheels down, but snapped all three axles, ripped the railgun from its mount, and gave everyone inside a nasty headache.

The entire time the three teams had been infiltrating their respective assignments, Emile had been ripping through geth platforms with impunity. Pulse rounds bounced off of powerful shields while buckshot tore through machinery. Being machines, they were once believed to be incapable of fear, but some platforms retreated rather than face this monster head on, what was that if not cowardice?

Emile's brand new shotgun proved to be too much for even an elite geth's shields. The shotgun looked a little more sci-fi than his last one, with a shorter pump handle and a more streamlined look. It was even more powerful than his last one, but cycled through the same ammo as his last one.

His kukri had been reformed ever since it was cut in half from his fight with the Saren mech. It still sported the same look, was even wielded with the same deadly grace as always, but now sported a new function that created a far more dangerous weapon than a simple knife.

When activated, the blade vibrates at the same frequency that bats use for echolocation, meaning it was silent, and could cut through armor as though it were butter. Many geth had found themselves missing several key components thanks to this new function, and added another level of fear for the geth. No geth with a shotgun dared getting close enough to use it, though Emile usually just closed the distance himself.

Emile had planted a small charge in the core of the reactor twenty minutes ago, and had wired it to the remote detonator on his visor. Right now, he was headed straight for the package he had been sent to retrieve.

When the Normandy had arrived to the Covenant wreck, the sensors had picked up a small geth dropship fleeing to FTL with an anomalous life sign aboard. Emile had a guess as to what it was, but really hoped he was wrong. According to Saren, no living Covenant had been aboard either ship when they came through the anomaly, but here the Spartan was, aboard a hostile space station to retrieve or terminate the possible Covenant life sign that had been detected as the Normandy dropped him off here.

The station shook as Emile stomped down a hallway littered with geth body parts. The Spartan checked the status of the Alliance fighters harrying the station's defenses, another pilot dead. Apparently, as his fighter was going down, he decided to take a portion of the station with him.

Emile shook his head, he had told Alliance Command that he didn't need the support, that it'd be a waste of lives for a convenience he didn't need. _Suck it up soldier,_ Emile thought, _I wonder how the other guys are doing. They better not have wrecked the vehicles._

Emile turned down a hallway, already pulling the trigger on his powerful shotgun and shredding a trooper platform. He walked up to the door, the life sign was just on the other side. It was locked, which was no problem for the powerful Spartan who just stepped back, charged forward, and broke through the steel door.

What he found was what he was expecting, a cryo-pod. Liquid nitrogen steam fell from the sides and frost covered up what was inside. The Spartan stepped forward cautiously, hoping he was wrong. He reached up and wiped the frost on the outside of the glass away, inside was a reptilian face with four mandibles lined with razor teeth…

Sparatus was looking over reports of the Alliance's fleet maneuvers in the Armstrong Nebula. He would be lying if he said he wasn't impressed by the human's naval strategy and ship capabilities, yet he would never admit it publicly.

Fortunately for the Councilor, he would get a chance to tell the human Councilor in private as Councilor Anderson walked in, "Councilor."

"Ah, Captain Anderson, eh… forgive me, Councilor Anderson."

"That's quite alright Sparatus, are those reports from the Armstrong Nebula?"

"Indeed, I hate to admit it, but the Turian Hierarchy may not have the most powerful ships around anymore."

"That is part of why I'm here actually."

Sparatus perked up at the implication, "And why are you here?"

"You remember that massive dreadnaught that had smashed through our fleet here?"

"How could I forget, it nearly squashed me."

"Whether or not you believe in the idea of Reapers, you have to admit that the Council needs to reassert its power throughout the galaxy."

The turian eyed the human across from him, "What are you working on?"

"Something the Alliance can't, nor should, tackle on its own."

"What do you have in mind?"

Anderson smirked, leaned forward and brought up a hologram of a blocky ship, about two and a half miles long, "There was a ship, capable of taking on multiple ships that would make Sovereign look like a bath toy."

_Bath toy? Spirits these humans and their vernacular,_ Sparatus though frustrated and reminding himself to research the term 'bath toy'.

"What's it called?"

"The Spirit of Fire."

**Ho ho! Yet again I disappoint my readers yet they continue to favorite and follow, my evil plan is working brilliantly. The conclusion will be brought up in the next chapter which will take place one year after the Battle of the Citadel. **

**If you haven't guessed, the teammate who will be leaving is Tali. She got her data on the geth and she's outta there. I hope you like the further integration of technology as well as the grizzly's 'James Bond mode.' If your wondering, Emile's new armor is basically all EVA armor for Halo 4, pitch black with red stripes (because I really think that armor scheme is badass) and a gold visor with, obviously, a skull scratched on it.**

**Remember to tell me what you think about the elite showing up, and about the little bit at the end about the new ship the Turian Hierarchy and the Human System's Alliance is planning.**

**Review, don't want to write what you don't want to read.**


	27. Burying the Plasma Powered Hatchet

**I couldn't leave you guys with that cliffhanger, I mean, a frozen elite? That's just rude! Plus I never gave any specifics on the conclusion for the geth incursions. I know I said this chapter will take place six months after the Battle of the Citadel, and it will, but the first bit will be take place a few days after the battle in the Armstrong Nebula. **

**This chapter will kinda show how things are progressing over time for Emile's team, and will have a few more crewmembers leaving to pursue their own interests, and the progress of the Council's brand new powerhouse ship.**

Emile listened to the laughter of his team with hardly any interest. The crew was celebrating the victory over geth forces in the Armstrong Nebula and saying a fond farewell to Tali.

The Alliance Fleet, as soon as the Normandy's team was done with their objectives, pressed against the geth forces. Eventually, the superior human fleet pushed the geth back to their main base of operations, a massive communications array and docking station on a moon in the Grissom system. Considering that the base was on a moon, the standard protocol regarding orbital bombardment was dropped, and the Alliance fleet rained death down upon the base.

The quarian engineer, meanwhile, had finally found what she was looking for while raiding the geth manufacturing plant on Casbin. In the base, she had found a wealth of information regarding the advances the geth had made ever since they first kicked the quarians off of Rannoch. Such information is highly prized in the Migrant Fleet, and was an appropriate Pilgrimage gift for a quarian like Tali.

Jorge, Jenkins, and Vega were on the Normandy as well, having been picked up after clearing an ExoGeni research base of husks, then having to defend it from geth forces trying to retake it. The three sat amongst the team, eating and laughing and sharing their story of their particular mission.

Yet, even then, Emile's thoughts were elsewhere. On his mission, a solo rampage through a geth space station orbiting a planet called Maji, he had encountered something that shook him to his core and brought back terrible memories of an unbeatable and ruthless enemy in a war as bleak as the space between galaxies. An elite zealot, field marshal class, to be specific.

Worse yet, Emile recognized the saurian alien. It had been just after Noble Team reached the Visegrad relay station.

"_Commander, what's your status?" Emile barked into the comm. line._

"_We've been engaged!" _

_Emile perked up at the information, readying himself incase one tried to get out._

"_Four, hostile coming out!" _

_Sure enough, a field marshal class zealot soon rounded around the corner. Emile sent a blast from his shotgun but the zealot reacted faster than what should have been possible. In response, the zealot charged the Spartan, pinning him against the steel wall, and raised his energy sword for the killing blow._

_Before he could get off the killing blow, however, Emile brought his legs up to his chest and kicked the saurian alien away. The zealot turned to escape, but before he could, the Spartan brought his kukri down on the zealot's head, missing the killing strike but cutting through the elaborate helmet and creating a vertical cut over the left eye._

The elite down in the cryo-pod had the same cut, down to the cut in the helmet.

What the hell was he going to do with the elite down in the cargo bay? Kill it? That was the most satisfactory option he could think of. The only problem was that the Council wanted it alive. Even if it was the only living member of its species in this universe, it was a First Contact scenario.

But how the hell would anyone wake that thing up safely? Emile knew how dangerous zealots were, and even one could give a Spartan II an early grave. The only way to engage a sword wielding zealot was at a distance with a sniper rifle, or with the high ground and a rapid fire rifle, neither of which was really available on the Normandy.

But right now Emile had a bigger problem, Jorge. If the Spartan II found out about the elite, then there was no chance of its survival. Honestly that didn't bother Emile, but orders were orders, and he knew there was only one thing Jorge truly hated, the Covenant.

"Hey punk, what's wrong with you?" _Damn it._

"Nothin Jorge, don't worry bout it," Emile tried to play it cool, should have know he couldn't fool Jorge.

"Is this about the 'special' package down in the cargo bay? What in that thing anyway?"

Emile tried the only thing with a shot of working, a lie by omission, "First Contact situation."

Jorge just nodded, seeming to accept that explanation, but not Emile's behavior, "Well quit moping and get in the conversation. You're up next."

Sure enough, all eyes in the mess hall turned to regard him, "I'm sorry, what the hell are we doing again?"

"Telling stories of our missions, so you gonna tell us yours? Or are you just gonna sit there and stare at nothin?"

"All right, T-Wrex, you wanna hear what the hell I was doin? Then listen up!"

While Emile was telling the ground teams what his mission was like, down in the cargo bay two marines on guard duty let their curiosity get the better of them.

"Come on, Justin! Let's go check it out!"

"Greg, are you sure this is wise?" the second marine asked. He wasn't sure what that steaming, frost covered pod was, but they had been told by the Commander himself to leave it alone, and that if it started moving to shoot first and then get the hell out of there.

"Oh please, what could be in here that would be so bad?" Greg asked, "If there was something really bad in here, don't you think the Commander would have brought more guards?"

"Maybe he didn't want to arouse suspicion!?" Justin half explained, half asked.

Greg just smirked at his friend with his back to the pod. He leaned back a little to smile at what he believed was his friend's stupidity, and unknowingly hit a small switch on the cryo-pod, beginning the thawing process.

"Uh… uh… Greg?"

"What!?" the marine in question asked, before he heard a small snarl behind him.

He whirled around but a scaly, four fingered hand wrapped around his face and a plasma sword ignited just below his throat. Despite this, a scream managed to escape his mouth.

Two floors above, both Spartan's heard the scream. Emile stopped telling his tale halfway through to pull an Avenger out of a nearby weapons locker and stomp to the elevator, Jorge directly behind him.

"Was that the package?" Jorge asked.

"Hold the door, Liara we need you!" Emile shouted.

The asari hurriedly jumped into the lift just before the elevator doors closed and the lift began its descent.

"Emile you gonna tell me what the hell is going on?"

"You'll find out soon enough, but I'm guessing that he got out," he answered.

"Who got out!?" Liara asked worriedly.

"Kid said it was a first contact scenario," Jorge asked, pointing accusing eyes at the smaller Spartan.

"It is, for them," Emile explained, jerking his head towards Liara.

Jorge sighed, "What species?"

"It's a fuckin field marshal."

Jorge straightened and looked back at Emile, "And you thought you could keep that in a cryo-pod?!"

"It wasn't going to open itself, but the marines on duty were probably too goddamn curious."

"That ain't the point, Punk; the point is that we have something on this ship more dangerous than ourselves! GODDAMNIT! CAN THIS THING GO ANY SLOWER!?"

In answer, the doors slid open and the three rushed out to meet the threat.

Said threat had knocked two marines unconscious, there was no honor in killing pitiful humans for a great warrior like himself, and was hiding next to the doors at the far end of the room. Normally he would not degrade himself so, but those blasted machines that had put him in the cryo-pod had programmed it too cold, and as a result his muscles were fatigued and his mind was cloudy as his body tried to recover.

Voro' Vadamee watched two people run out in front of him, one of which looked odd, blue skin and a fringe on the back of its head. Still, it looked too human to think anything else of it, and Voro struck.

Jorge and Liara were the first out of the door, and were the first to see the unconscious marines. Liara moved to help them while Jorge scanned the room until a massive force struck the back of his head, making the last thing he remembers seeing is the floor rushing up to meet him.

Liara turned at the sound of Jorge's body hitting the floor just in time to be grabbed by a creature two feet taller than the biggest person she had ever seen. She tried to scream, but had her mouth quickly covered by a massive, four fingered scaly hand.

Emile watched his two comrades rush out, and didn't bother stopping them. Jorge was letting hate blind him, something that rarely happens to the big man, and Liara was worried for the two marines, which was normal for her. Emile was worried for the marines, and held plenty of internal hate, but despite his outlandish behavior, he rarely let hate control him and he always was a cold bastard.

Emile watched calmly as the zealot knocked Jorge out with impunity and took Liara hostage. As far as he knew, elites had senses to compete with a Spartan's, so that thing probably listened to the entire argument in the elevator.

The two opponents reached an impasse, with Emile pointing an Avenger at the huge alien, and the saurian alien holding a plasma sword at the asari's throat.

Emile took the time to look over the alien, who was exactly as he remembered. It stood approximately nine feet tall, had to weigh over a thousand pounds with all that armor on, the scar over the left eye, and ruby red armor complete with purple highlights befitting its station.

Voro looked over the small blue human's head at the abnormally large human across from him. He looked familiar, not that Voro would ever disgrace himself by remembering a human's face, but the stance, the size, the… "Demon."

"You remember me, huh?" the demon spoke, "Yeah, figured that'd be the only way you'd recognize me, I'm the one who put that scratch on your face, remember?"

Voro remembered, it was a mark of dishonor for allowing an enemy to pierce his skin. His past record more than made up for the slight dishonor, and he was allowed to keep his place as High General in the Holy Covenant, but his older, but smaller, brother, Thel' Vadamee, had shown great disappointment in him after the minor disgrace.

Voro spoke to the demon in what English his mandibles could manage, "You disgraced me by touching my skin with your foul blade."

Emile snorted at the elite's warbling sentence, "I'd have thought you would find it a symbol of honor, a memento from a battle with a worthy opponent in close quarters."

"That would require you being a worthy opponent, even if you earned the title of demon, you are still just a human in an suit of armor."

"And you're just a snake wearing pieces of tin covered in a thin veil of honor! What honor is there in killing children?! Innocent people, LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!" Emile finished with a roar. The elite had started to look away when Emile started talking about killing children.

"I NEVER KILLED A CHILD!" Voro roared back, "And I never will. I didn't even kill your pathetic guards, nor did I kill the demon at your feet when I had the chance!"

"Don't lie, that blow was meant to kill, the fact he's still breathing is because he was built to fight monsters like you!"

"I AM NOT A MONSTER! I have never ordered the death of those who could not protect themselves, such things are for the lowly jiralhanae, or kig-yar!"

"So you remove yourselves from the equation and pretend that you're still not giving innocent people a chance? Or are we not even people to you!?"

"I thought you animals once. Primitive weaponry that might as well have been sticks against a wild mgelakgolo, unimpressive physical attributes, and no understanding of honor!"

Emile and Voro stared at each other from their positions ten feet apart, while Liara struggled against the iron grip of the sangheili holding her. She might as well have been trying to lift the Citadel with her biotics, he was far too powerful for her.

Emile broke the silence, "You said once."

Voro tilted his head in confusion.

"You said you thought us animals, once. What about now?"

Voro smiled inwardly at the demon's sharp attention to detail, "Indeed, I once thought you animals. But you cannot fight an enemy for twenty seven of your years without gaining a certain respect for them. I thought you had no honor, but you fought with what you had against a superior foe, and you never backed down, you never showed quarter against those who were wiping out billions of people at a time, what was that if not honor?"

Emile was about to say something in response, but was cut off by the sangheili.

"Your technology, though primitive, proved far more versatile than ours. One rifle could take several roles on the battle field, your ships were faster and more maneuverable than ours, and your ingenuity knows no bounds. That is what I saw over the course of twenty seven years demon, a people who didn't need to die, who didn't deserve death, but we were killing them anyway."

"Then stop."

Voro shook his head, "It's not that simple, the Hierarchs…"

"Don't exist here. Do you even know where you are?"

"The last location I was in, that I knew, was in Long Night of Solace, orbiting a planet you call Reach."

Emile smirked, "You know what happened to that ship?"

"It was destroyed by a slipspace portal, how that happened, I cannot say."

"The guy drooling on the floor flew up with a slipspace generator, hijacked a corvette called the Ardent Prayer, sent it flying towards your super carrier, and then set it off."

To Emile's surprise, the elite just started laughing, "Did I not say you humans were perhaps the most ingenious species I have ever encountered?"

"I suppose you're right, but now you have to ask yourself, what happened after the slipspace portal?"

Voro immediately quieted and began thinking, "I admit, my knowledge of engineering is limited to fixing my sword or rifle on the field of battle, so I cannot say."

"Almost three years ago you and him," Emile said gesturing to the unconscious Jorge, "came through that portal and arrived in the exact same galaxy you were."

"That doesn't answer your own question demon," Voro growled.

"The only difference is that this galaxy is in another dimension. There's no Covenant, no elites that I've seen, other than you of course, and a bunch of aliens I ain't never seen before neither, like the one your holding hostage."

The massive sangheili looked down at the blue human he was holding, "It is not a human?"

"Nope, an asari, but she looks human, huh? It's like whoever made this place got lazy and just said 'fuck it!'"

"You speak like an uneducated female, one who doesn't even know the name of the tool she plows the field with, yet you show an hidden wisdom," Voro stated, he was starting to relax his hold on Liara, though it was still like being pinned underneath a drunken krogan.

"Uh, thanks, I guess, but the point I'm trying to make is that there are no Prophets, no Holy Covenant or whatever the hell you call that thing, no other really hard to pronounce aliens other than you! You're it! If the war against humanity continues, it's all on you!"

"If there is no Covenant, then there the forefathers are also absent?"

"As far as I know, the only interest the Forerunners had in this place was purely scientific. It's actually thanks to one of their projects on Reach that I ended up here."

"Then there is no reason for us to fight," the sangheili warrior concluded.

"Not a God, damn, one," Emile agreed.

Voro didn't say anything else, just dropped Liara and deactivated his sword. Emile folded up his Avenger assault rifle but held on just in case the alien was lying. He wasn't, in fact, the sangheili even picked up Jorge and offered to carry him to the 'place of medicine.'

Emile let Liara take the elevator alone first, and used the time to ask the swordsman his name.

"Voro' Vadamee… humph, I suppose it's Voro' Vadam now."

Emile stuck out a hand, "Emile A239."

"That isn't much of a name, de- Emile."

The Spartan smirked at the sangheili's botched pronunciation of his name, "I suppose not, but it's the one I was given."

"Hm," was the only reply the zealot gave. The unease between the two of them was obvious to any bystander observing them, but the fact they weren't at each other's throats spoke volumes.

The elevator door opened, and the sangheili with a Spartan on his back was the first one inside, with the Spartan carrying two unconscious marines directly behind the alien.

Two floors up, Kaidan held a shaking Liara in his arms as she babbled on about a _big, damn, thing_. Most of what she said was gibberish, but every now and then she could spew out something cohesive.

She was held hostage by something _big_ in the cargo hold, that much was obvious. The marine holding her couldn't be sure, but it sounded like she said it was strong enough to put Jorge down in one hit to the back of the head. Then there was something about how it and Emile knew each other, but the rest was sobbing. Whatever had happened down there had scared her.

Wrex was holding a shotgun, ready to go down to the cargo hold and back up Emile, but before he could the elevator door opened. Wrex turned ready to blast the monster Liara spoke of, but was greeted with the sight of Emile and said monster standing side by side, giving the krogan a fantastic view of just how much bigger the alien is than him.

"Wassup T-Wrex?" Emile asked as though nothing were out of the ordinary, though his cocky grin made Wrex think he was doing that on purpose.

"Uh, Commander?"

"Yeah?"

"What is that thing?"

"Him?" Emile asked as he glanced over to the sangheili patiently waiting with Jorge slung over his shoulder, "Oh he's my good friend Voro' Vadam, he'll uh… he'll be staying with us a while."

No one in the mess hall said a thing as the two moved into Chakwas' medbay.

Surprisingly, the silver haired doctor didn't bat an eye at the nine foot, thousand pound sangheili standing in her medbay. In fact, all she did was sigh and ask Emile what he did this time.

"It's all him," Emile said pointing at Voro.

"Well, I don't know who you are, but the next time you plan on knocking out three crewmembers think again, because if you do I will inject you with the vaccine for Tuchankan flu so fast you'll wonder what happened to your skin right before you start regurgitating your mothers milk!"

"That… that doesn't make any sense."

"It doesn't have to, because it'll happen to you if you do this again, mister! Now sit down while I take care of these crewmembers because if you're going to be on my ship, then you're going to have a physical."

"I don't let _doctors_ touch me!" Voro growled the word doctor as though it tasted like poison.

"Well you're going to let me, and if you don't sit still for it, I'll start jabbing needles into random places on your body," Chakwas said faux sweetly.

The sangheili looked to the Spartan and asked, "Are all of your doctors so fiery?"

"Nope, just Doc Chalk," Emile responded, "Have fun!"

"Oh no you don't mister!"

"What'd I do!"

"You are going to sit down and tell me everything that happened! Shame on you for leaving this one here alone when he hasn't a clue what's going on!" Chakwas scolded the Spartan who looked visibly cowed.

"Okay, okay, but what about the team, aren't they going to need to be informed?"

Chakwas flipped a switch next to the window in the medbay. After turning the comm. line to the mess hall on, she looked out the window and asked the assembled team there, "Can you hear us now?"

Garrus, Emile's unofficial second in command just nodded his head in response.

The rest of the day was filled with Chakwas sticking needles in places Voro was quite sure they didn't belong, and Emile explaining to his team who the new guy was, and why he wasn't just killed in the cryo-pod.

A few hours later a call came into the Normandy, a shuttle was here for Tali.

**Oh my God I'm such an asshole, I didn't do anything I promised to do! Sorry for the shorter chapter, I just felt that the elite situation had to be dealt with. I promise the next chapter will cover more ground, especially since I plan on moving on to the Cerberus plotline, plus we'll see some development of the Citadel's new flagship, which I will not name the Spirit of Fire, I'm just basing it off the SoF. **

**I should add, I'm not saying that Voro' Vadam is stronger than Jorge when Jorge is in his armor, but obviously he's going to be stronger than Jorge in civilian clothing. Also, I googled sangheili and it said that they can get up to nine feet, so obviously he is a little larger than most, but don't think I'm pulling this stuff out of my ass.**

**If you've got a name for the new flagship, I'd like to hear it, and if you've got complaints about how I'm such a lousy writer, I wouldn't be as interested in that.**

**Also, tell me what you think of the new character joining the Normandy and if you thought I did a good job with his confrontation with Emile.**

**Review, don't want to write what you don't want to read.**


	28. Filler, Filler, Chicken Dinner

**Okay, the inspiration has really gone in this stories direction for awhile, so I may not get back to the other story for quite awhile. Glad to see so many people like Voro' Vadam, and this particular chapter, which takes place six months after his unfreezing, will focus on how he is settling into the crew even as most of the crew is leaving the Normandy to do other things.**

**Heads up, the first bit of this chapter will mostly be a recap of the past six months in the story line, and Wrex, Garrus, and Jorge will already be gone and Ashley will be leaving during this chapter. **

**We'll also see the development of the so far unnamed ship, I really wanted to name it Tears of Regret which a guest suggested because that is one ballsy and full on awesome name! But that sounds like a Covenant ship name rather than an ME or UNSC name. Maybe Voro will visit the sight and throw that name out, because I have more back story to throw out there for our new sangheili crewmate.**

"Zorro, flank em, I'll push up the middle!" Emile shouted at Voro' Vadam. The first few times the Spartan called the zealot 'Zorro' the sangheili had been confused. It had taken a brave crewmember to approach him and tell him what Zorro meant.

Truthfully, the warrior was honored to be named after such an honorable swordsman of humanities past, but he still found himself ignoring the command that came with the name every time Emile used it.

Voro's left plasma blade bisected a batarian terrorist while his right blade took the head of another. The sangheili leaped some haphazardly scattered crates to the side of the control room while his human commander pushed up the middle.

Taking commands from a human had left a bitter taste in Voro's mouth at first, but over the past six months the warrior had begun to see it differently. He wasn't taking orders from a human anymore, but a fellow warrior, one fully dedicated to fighting what others cannot.

Activating his active camouflage unit, the nine foot saurian alien in bright red and purple armor disappeared from sight and left the batarian terrorists with one target. Even if it was a seven foot tall, pitch black and blood red, skulled target that was ripping through their defenses like tissue paper.

Voro shook his head at the Spartan's cackling laughter, it never ceased to amaze the sangheili how much that human loved battle. Voro enjoyed fighting worthy foes, found peace in the bloodshed and chaos, but the Spartan took this to new levels.

The warrior poked his invisible head around the corner to watch the Spartan fight, something he found himself doing quite often. The large human's shotgun punched through the body of one batarian and shredded another's flesh behind him. Emile then twisted to his left and backhanded a terrorist, breaking his neck, and brought up his right foot in a roundhouse kick shattering the skull of another.

The super soldier had started the mission with only a couple of blood red highlights on his armor, but looking at him now, one would think that was his primary color choice. The skull carved gold visor was speckled in the coppery blood of dozens of batarian terrorists, who now ran from the Spartan, rather than fight him.

"Zorro, you in position?"

"Of course, Spartan," the sangheili whispered.

"Then go, get Balak's guards while me 'n him have a little chat."

Voro just nodded, even though Emile couldn't see it, and grabbed the nearest guard by the throat and breaking his neck without a sound. None of the other batarians could see what happened to the first guard, or the second, or the third, in fact, the entire guard disappeared without anyone noticing as Balak was far too focused on the one human he hated more than any others.

"If it isn't the war hero!" the batarian growled as Emile approached.

"Where!?" Emile joked, looking over his shoulder for the war hero.

"Cocky, damnable human! Your species has cost mine EVERYTHING!"

"Like what?" Emile asked as he watched another batarian's neck turn at an extreme angle.

"You've colonized the Skyllian verge and the Attican Traverse, taking resources that belong to MY people!"

"I'm sorry, but didn't your people achieve space flight like, a hundred years before mine? How the hell did we beat you to it?"

"Our people were rising in the Council's ranks; we were a few years away from colonizing the Verge. Then you just come along and the Council gives it all to YOU!"

Emile just sighed at that, from what he had read, the Council was a few centuries away from giving the batarians anything, "So you're saying that we're better than you?"

Balak visibly stumbled over Emile's conclusion, "Wha- no! Of course not! Your species is inferior to the mighty Batarian Hegemony!"

"So when I slaughtered your little invasion force during the Skyllian Blitz those were… what? Retarded batarians?"

"GAAAAH!" Emile had officially pushed Balak past his tipping point, causing the batarian to charge the physically superior human, resulting in his unconsciousness.

"Why did you spare him, Spartan?" Voro asked as he tossed down the last of the batarian guard detail Balak brought with him.

"The others died because they can't tell us shit about the attack, but Balak can possibly link this attack to Batarian Hegemony, provided the Alliance lets me use my 'special' questioning techniques."

Voro nodded and moved over to the charges set around the room and smashed the chemical explosives before they could go off.

Emile watched the sangheili for a bit before keying his comm. unit, "Li, Elvis, Cheeks, one of you, status on the hostages."

Liara was the one who responded, "Commander, Kaidan and Ashley have just finished getting the hostages onto the Normandy, we're just waiting on you and Voro."

"We'll be there momentarily Li, A239 out. Zorro, let's go, the fusion torches have been turned around right?"

"Correct, Spartan."

"Then let's go already!" the massive human barked as he slung the unconscious batarian extremist over his left shoulder. The sangheili quickly followed the smaller, but still imposing Spartan to the Normandy.

Once on the advanced warship, Joker took off while Emile deposited Balak on the ceiling of the cargo bay where the extremist's previous hostages could throw things at him. Liara had asked Emile if that was really necessary, and Emile had told her to make sure they don't throw anything sharp or heavy at him, they still needed the batarian alive.

Voro found his new human commander odd, and the crew just as odd. Liara was still wary of the massive sangheili because of the fact he held her hostage not six months ago. Kaidan was hostile, at first, but had warmed up to the sangheili and even invited the saurian warrior to the Friday poker games, which the giant reptile had yet to accept.

Ashley was mostly just interested in his plasma repeater, but had offered similar invitations. Her mate, Garrus, had spent the most time with the nine foot tall warrior. The two would talk about military tactics in naval engagements and firefights, codes of honor for both sangheili and turians, and their respective wars with humans.

Voro missed the turian's company, finding him and the krogan Wrex the only two he could hold a conversation with and not worry about insulting them. The turian had shared with both Voro and Emile about a doctor he had almost captured a few years before, and that he had found a ship belonging to the insidious doctor. The three had boarded the ship, killed the disgusting salarian doctor's failed experiments, and then killed the doctor.

Garrus had left not three days later, saying he needed to move out from under the shadow of the Normandy. The turian still stayed in contact with the human female Ashley, who in turn kept the crew appraised of his whereabouts. The last time he had contacted Ashley, he had formed some sort of vigilante group in Omega.

Wrex had been a good conversationalist, even if he did have the mannerisms of a drunken jiralhanae. Still, the krogan told the sangheili of his people's unfortunate circumstance, and was glad Emile had saved him from going before the Council, for he might have beheaded them. What cowards refused to claim responsibility on the tragedy they caused?

The krogan had found information pertaining to an ancestral artifact held by a turian warlord. Voro hadn't been apart of that particular mission, rather ordered by Emile to fraternize with the crew. After Wrex had recovered his ancestral armor from the turian, he had left for Tuchanka, claiming that he was going to drag his people out of their graves and back to their former glory.

Trip was by far the friendliest crewmember Voro had encountered. If a slobbering, scaly, non-sapient varren could be called a crewmember. The huge reptile had quickly befriended the other huge reptile of the ship, especially considering Voro fed Trip strips of meat whenever the varren was in the cargo bay.

Jorge, meanwhile, wasn't around for more than two days after Voro had awakened, but never spoke to the sangheili. Emile had explained that Jorge didn't hate anything, except the Covenant, especially the elites. Voro didn't blame the Spartan, his people had done terrible things to Jorge's, and Voro happened to be responsible for the death of two of his Spartan brethren.

Well, Voro had slain more than two Spartans, but after Emile explained the difference between II's and III's, the warrior understood that he had only slain two Spartan II's. Both of the Spartans had been in the same place, but only one was in fair swordplay, the other had been gunned down with Voro's plasma repeater after being battered by two mgelakgolo.

Voro, over his long career as a swordsman of the Holy Covenant, had only slain ten Spartans, and truly only three were ever fair swordfights, the others had been taken down with less honorable means.

Despite his killing several of his brothers, Emile was surprisingly unconcerned with that, claiming that only the now mattered. And that if Voro ever tried anything that the 'hinge head' would find a shotgun barrel so far up his ass that if Emile fired Voro cough up buckshot. Voro didn't doubt the Spartan who showed an inner fire rare even for his brethren.

The Council had initially wanted to speak to the sangheili, but Emile had stated that Voro still wasn't comfortable around humans, and had already mistaken an asari as human, so the Council might want to wait until he didn't want to cut off every human and asari's head. Apparently the asari Councilor was a coward, at least according to Emile.

Voro was shaken out of his musings to see the human who had heavily impacted his life quite recently walking towards him, "Commander, how may I be of service?"

"You can stop being so goddamn formal, Zorro, and we've been asked to begin the interrogation of Balak," the Spartan informed him.

"We?"

"Yes, we, they specifically ordered me to, but I think a nice big, intimidating sangheili, am I pronouncing that right?" Voro nodded, "good, would help soften him up. It won't change my tactics, but it will leave the question in his mind as to why you are there, and I don't think he'll conclude that your there to pick flowers."

"There are no flowers on this ship."

Emile just put his hand on his visor, engaging in a futile effort to rub his forehead through his helmet, "Just- just come on!"

A few thousand light years away, in a restricted area of Citadel space, a framework is being put together.

Sitting between a couple dozen fabrication stations was a ship's skeleton two and a half kilometers in length, three quarters of a kilometer in width, and one third of a kilometer tall.

Already the frame showed massive armor plates being moved into place. The top of the ship slanted at downward angles, with a single strip along the very top lined with point defense weaponry, missile pods, and frigate grade mass accelerators for offensive maneuvers. The bottom was less armored, but heavily armed with massive mass accelerator guns on swivels, an under slung Onager cannon, hundreds of point defense turrets, and thousands of missile pods.

The ship, when finished, would carry an entire battle groups worth of firepower and a recon fleet. In two large hangars on either side of the ship, three Hierarchy/Alliance frigates would be stationed. Each would be based on the design of the Normandy, if less advanced, and be equipped with an Onager, HES stealth systems, and powerful twin mass accelerators on each wing. All six frigates would be manned by a composite crew, just as the main ship would be.

Running down the length of the ship on either side of the top strip of weaponry were two gigantic magnetic rails. This was where the ship gained true firepower. These two rails could each send a six hundred ton slug traveling at thirty kilometers a second. These were the MAC guns, and the only two in the galaxy.

The original schematics only allowed one shot per charge, but a salarian physicist by the name of Moridin had found a way to allow each charge to fire three rounds. Even though one MAC round would be enough to destroy any other ship in existence, the way Sovereign shrugged off volleys from entire battle groups with no visible strain, the Hierarchy and Alliance representatives overlooking its construction had green lighted the change.

Of course then there were the fifteen plasma torpedo launchers located in various places over the hull, providing a fallback should conventional weapons fail.

Protecting the heavy armor of the ship would be the largest and strongest kinetic barrier in the galaxy. The new technology of plasma shields wasn't far enough along to cover the massive ship. In fact, the ship was too large to project a mass effect field capable of getting the behemoth into FTL speeds, forcing it to rely on the slipspace drive.

The ship would carry over a thousand people just to man the ship, and several thousand soldiers if the ship was to be used for planetary assault/defense. Then there were the hundreds of ground vehicles and gunships in massive storage bays. Along with the new dreadnaughts capabilities came a new generation of war vehicles.

Sparrowhawk gunships for anti-tank purposes came from the design of Mantis gunships, Vulture gunships designed to destroy heavily armored defenses were basically Kodiaks that had their crew bay filled with missiles, and Albatross heavy dropships lined with the new Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle suppression systems were designed to be heavily armored crates with engines attached.

None of the new weapons systems have been tested on battlefields, but all of them were ready for deployment. Despite this, however, the ship itself wouldn't be completed for another three months. Two war machines coming together to make a ship that would have taken either alone years to complete was taking nine months when working in unison with technical support from the Salarian Union.

When it came down to it, the Asari Republics were essentially left out of the mega-dreadnaught's construction. Even so, they were demanding that an asari matriarch be made captain of the ship, since they were the founding race of the Citadel, but were facing greater resistance to the idea than they expected.

The Turian Hierarchy, naturally, thought that a turian admiral was the best choice for the command, and the HSA, obviously, wanted a human admiral in command, but was willing to go with a turian admiral, but strangely, the Salarian Union had a different idea. So different, in fact, that when Valern brought it up at a private Council meeting, he was met with stunned silence for several seconds.

"Why him?" Sparatus finally asked.

"He is impartial, to the point of being completely dissociated from any political pressure we put on him. As evidenced from mission reports graciously provided to us by Admiral Hackett, he does what he thinks is right, regardless of the party affected by his actions. He has performed incredibly under duress, commanding soldiers that don't even answer to him in situations that the STG uses to break our _enemies._"

"If there is one person the Salarian Union trusts to _not_ put our interests, or human interests, or turian interests, or asari interests ahead of the objective, it is Captain Jorge 052."

Anderson looked down at the mission reports, reading through them. Even though he saw the logic behind Valern's suggestion, there was one critical error, "Captain 052 is a field captain, not a ship's captain."

As usual, the salarian had a comeback, "During the mission to liberate… ah here it is, during the mission to liberate the mining colony on Chohe in the Cacus system of the Hades Gamma Cluster from the geth there, the bridge of the ship he was on the… SSV Othrys, a cruiser, was hit with a mass accelerator round and everyone inside was killed."

"The then Lieutenant Commander 052 rallied the crew and had each man at each auxiliary control station in the ship in no time, putting the Othrys back in the battle and actually destroying three geth cruisers that easily outclassed the damaged Othrys."

"When it all comes down to it, Councilors, Captain 052 has the experience, he has the motivation, and he has compassion. He is the perfect choice to lead the most powerful ship in Citadel space."

Sparatus looked to Anderson, who just shrugged at the suggestion, it was obvious that Jorge wasn't necessarily loyal to the HSA, and he had gone out of his way to save more than one turian life, and had in fact worked to save Sparatus' life personally.

Tevos looked at Sparatus, and couldn't believe it when he nodded to her, nonverbally indicating that he agreed with Valern, how could he do this?! It was her people, the asari, who had created the Citadel, it was they who led the Citadel, not these upstarts!

Anderson could see the brief look of anger on Councilor Tevos' face, but couldn't discern her deeper thoughts as it disappeared quickly.

The asari Councilor then spoke, "All in favor of putting Captain Jorge 052 in command of the new defense dreadnaught?"

The other three Councilors gave their affirmative immediately, and waited as Tevos finally gave hers, albeit with incredible dissatisfaction.

"Now all it needs is a name," Anderson brought up, humor evident in his voice. Little did he know he had just doomed himself to another three hours of debate over a name for the new ship.

…

"How about the Thermopylae?"

"We probably shouldn't name it after a geographical location on Earth," Anderson told the salarian Councilor.

"That's a place on Earth? I just heard it in a documentary vid once and I liked the sound of it."

"The Serpent's Tongue?"

"The what?"

"Well, the Citadel, the heart of Council space, is located in the Serpent Nebula, so… the Serpent's Tongue," Anderson explained.

Admiral Hackett stood at the holographic imager, speaking to a fully armored Emile on the other line, "So did Balak give anything up?"

"His motivation is obvious, there was no manipulation, which was the standard belief, but he did reveal where he got his soldiers, sir."

"Well don't hold out on me, soldier."

"Balak was supplied with batarian regulars by the Hegemony itself."

"Balak's confession is not enough to go to war over, or even make an accusation, soldier."

Even though Hackett couldn't see past the holographic visor he was currently presented with, the admiral could have sworn the skull was smiling at him.

"No but the written order from the Hegemony I found on Balak's omnitool is, sir."

**Ooh! Is war on the horizon? Could the Serpent's Tongue be seeing action as soon as it is out of dry dock? Will Voro ever fit in with the crew? Will Ashley ever see Garrus again? Will anyone understand this Soap Opera reference? You'll probably have to wait another few days to a full week to find out!**

**Tell me what you think about the name I came up with the ship, and what you think about the potential war the Citadel would engage in with the Hegemony (how the fuck do you pronounce that?). I was thinking that the war could distract the Council from the colonies disappearing in the Terminus systems, and from Cerberus' activities.**

**Also, did I make the Serpent's Tongue too powerful? I was thinking that a Reaper could probably withstand a MAC round, in fact I was thinking to compare a Sovereign class Reaper with a CSS Covenant battle cruiser in shield strength, so I don't think that Serpent's Tongue will just bowl through a fleet of Reapers, but rather engage them one ship at a time, taking heavy damage if confronted with dozens at a time, but capable of taking three on without casualties.**

**Review, don't want to write what you don't want to read.**


	29. Jenkins vs Batarians

**Another chapter, will it never end? Well prepare to be subjected to a story full of minor grammatical transgressions, big words that I'm probably not using properly, and plot holes. I would like to thank you guys for reviewing this story so much, I literally feel a spike of excitement every time this gets another review. I know, that's really weird, but who the hell cares.**

**I forgot to mention some details about the Serpent's Tongue in the last chapter that I'd like to get out there now. The Normandy class frigates that the Serpent's Tongue carries are not the same size as the Normandy itself, which, if you've been paying attention, is the same size as the Normandy SR2. The frigates on the Serpent's Tongue are more like the Normandy SR1, smaller, faster, and carrying less firepower.**

**The Normandy class frigates are equipped with Onagers, despite their smaller size, which won't be quite as powerful as the Normandy's, due to their smaller size. Their also equipped with the Heat Emission Sink stealth systems, which I think is the same stuff that was on the Normandy SR1, please correct me if I'm wrong. They won't destroy entire fleets by themselves, but their fast and strong reconnaissance vehicles.**

**Guest, I don't know if he's the nitpicky one, though he usually introduces himself, believed that Serpent's Tongue would be too small to fit all of the weapons and frigates on it. I'd like to say that my specifications are up to snuff, and I'll keep it that way unless someone who has enough time to do the math brings it to my attention. As I'm sure you know by now, I do like to keep my fans happy.**

**This will be a heavy Jenkins chapter, also, introducing Miranda and Jacob.**

Citadel Space was a flurry of activity for the past four months. Ever since it became public knowledge that the Batarian Hegemony had supported and supplied a terrorist attack against the HSA colony of Terra Nova, everyone had been asking everyone else and their sister what the Council should do about it.

Some thought that this was strictly a human problem, and that the Council shouldn't commit any turian or salarian ships to a war with the Hegemony. Most of the people who thought this voiced their opinion forgetting that the HSA did in fact have a Council Seat, making this a Council problem.

Others still thought that nothing would happen. After all, the Batarian Hegemony had committed countless acts of terrorism against hundreds of colonies in the Skyllian Verge and the Attican Traverse, and nothing had ever been done about it then, why would this be any different.

The flaw in that particular line of logic is that the Council has never before had actual, physical evidence of the Hegemony's support. The fact that the batarian terrorist Balak had coughed up actual proof of the Hegemony's orders to drop an asteroid on Terra Nova was a dramatic development.

Of course there were a great many people that supported actual military action against the batarians. Hegemony funded slavers had been terrorizing colonies of every species for years, and a large majority of the population had known someone somewhere who had been on a colony that was attacked.

Such public support for the war was pushing the Council towards the inevitable, and the leaders of the Batarian Hegemony were worried. The batarian populace was always told their fleets were invincible, and their soldiers were indestructible. Batarian children grew up knowing for a fact that batarians are superior to every other species in every way, and that everyone other species are less than animals in their eyes.

Unfortunately for the Hegemony, such lies were just that, lies. Their fleets are far from invincible, even if they are numerous. The Batarian Hegemony had always kept a fleet of warships to rival the Citadels, and kept their technology on par by stealing what they could, but now that the Citadel was making huge advances in technology, the Citadel had also made huge advancements in security. Such advancements courtesy of a UNSC 'dumb' AI currently integrated into Arcturus Station.

Not to mention the Alliance was pumping out ships faster than anyone could believe was possible, creating a dreadnaught every six months, a cruiser every four, and a frigate every month. That meant that the batarians could no longer count on equal numbers, putting them at yet another disadvantage.

And when it came to a Batarian Regular versus an Alliance marine, the odds weren't in favor of the four eyed humanoids. The Reach assault rifle had recently become standard issue, and there were rumors of plasma shield capable hardsuits being distributed to field commanders. In all honesty, the Alliance itself was capable of waging an even footed war against the Hegemony without any support from the Council.

These reasons all led to a rash decision that would prove to be the downfall of the Hegemony. Ever since the failed mission at Terra Nova, a special operations division of the Hegemony had been planning a mission to assassinate the Council, and now it was being put into motion.

On a small, desolate moon at the border of Hegemony and Alliance space, a base was a flurry of activity. They were putting together a strike team to take down the Council and loading them onto a Kodiak shuttle headed for the Citadel itself. The only problem was that this base was under the watchful eye of a Cerberus probe, which itself was under the watchful eye of an Alliance drone. Both automated spy satellites had kept both organizations well informed of the batarian's plans, and both organizations had sent a team to deal with the problem.

Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor busied themselves with their equipment as their matte black shuttle dropped out of FTL on the far side of the moon. Miranda was a tall woman, a full six feet tall in heels, and extraordinarily beautiful, with glossy raven hair, flawless skin, and ocean blue eyes. Her uniform certainly didn't detract from her beauty. She wore a skin tight one piece outfit that was black and white with the Cerberus logo on her shoulder and above her right breast.

Jacob Taylor could also be considered a handsome man. Broad shoulders and big muscles were on display as he wore tight, though not nearly as tight as Miranda's, black armor adorned with more Cerberus logos. If there was one thing Cerberus was known for, it was putting their logos on anything they could get their hands on.

Unfortunately, brilliant advertising is not what most people associate with Cerberus. Named after the Greek god Hade's dog, Cerberus is a pro-human terrorist organization, despite their claims to the contrary. Most people were unaware that they even existed, but the Alliance brass and the soldiers who stumbled across their heinous experiments knew better.

Despite an almost religious devotion to humanity, the shadowy organization had sent a team to save a Council that was three fourths alien. The reason being that they knew that the Alliance would need the Council's help in the inevitable war, which led to Cerberus's two top agents being sent to deal with the assassins.

The midnight colored shuttle skimmed the surface of the crater filled moon as it tried to reach its objective without being detected. Fortunately for the two operatives inside, the batarians never noticed the shuttle land inside an open docking bay protected with a mass effect field to keep the air in.

"Alright, pilot take the shuttle to the dark side of the moon, we'll radio once we've completed our objective," Miranda ordered with a distinctive Australian accent, "Ready Jacob?"

The dark skinned man just nodded in reply as he hefted his Eviscerator. Miranda brought her Kassa Locust submachine gun to bear and opened the door. As expected, the bay was empty; most of the batarians were too busy preparing for their mission on the other side of the base.

"Clear," Jacob said after performing a sweep with his advanced shotgun.

"Move up, we have to get to the control station, we can't let that shuttle leave."

The two operatives moved on to the rest of the base, unaware that they were being watched. Two shimmers detached themselves from the shadows and followed the Cerberus operatives into the base.

It didn't take long for Miranda and Jacob to encounter their first batarian soldiers. A quick firefight put down four Batarian Regulars on guard duty before any alarm could be raised.

"Strange, I thought batarian military protocols dictated that every guard duty have six soldiers," Jacob pointed out.

"Well obviously they weren't following protocol," Miranda answered, "No use getting worked up over a couple of lazy grunts not following their orders, let's keep moving."

Neither operative noticed the two batarian soldiers with broken necks being drug into the shadows. While Miranda had been reloading and Jacob had been biotically throwing the last batarian soldier against the wall, the two unnoticed guards had tried to sneak up on the two, but had their necks broken by two barely noticeable shimmers.

A half hour later, Miranda was absolutely certain they were being followed.

"Why do you think that?" Jacob asked as he slid another thermal clip into his Eviscerator.

"Call it a gut feeling, I can't shake the feeling we're being watched," the femme fatale said as she looked down a seemingly empty hallway.

Unbeknownst to her, she was making eye contact with one of her followers. As soon as the two Cerberus operatives moved off to find the control room, two shimmers followed them without making a sound, albeit at a much slower pace than before. They knew that the one know as Miranda was on to them, and they couldn't blow their cover yet.

Finally, the two Cerberus agents reached the room to the control room, and impressively, they did it without alerting the entire base to their presence. Jacob moved over to the doors controls, shared a nod with Miranda, and hit the controls.

The batarian agents inside were caught with their figurative pants around their ankles. Miranda used her almost asari like biotic ability to fling soldiers around the control room, while Jacob used his impressive reflexes to blast the soldiers Miranda had in her biotic clutches.

The two worked fast, but not fast enough as one batarian managed to hit the alarms, sending the base into high alert. Jacob blasted the head off the offending four eyed alien, and as a result had his back turned to Miranda when a rifle wielding batarian rushed her from the side.

Before he could reach her however, he fell to the floor with a combat knife lodged in his jugular. Miranda didn't notice that Jacob was in no position to make the throw however, and made a mental note to remind him that he was not to throw his knife in combat, that would leave him without a knife.

After they killed the ten batarians manning the control station, a curiously small number for the amount of operations, Miranda brought up the knife to Jacob.

"Miranda, I still have my knife."

"What?" Miranda asked as she felt a chill go down her spine. She _knew_ they were being followed, but one was able to kill a batarian not two feet away from her without her noticing.

Both operatives scanned the room for the eyes they could feel staring down their back. As they were looking through the spacious control room, the door opened, revealing three batarian commandoes, all armed with powerful Mattock assault rifles.

Before the two Cerberus operatives could react, nine bolts of cobalt plasma split into groups of three dug into the batarians' chests.

As the three four eyed humanoids fell, the two humans in the room turned to the source of the plasma. Their eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets as they fell upon a shimmer standing a little over six feet tall that wavered as it fell off of the man it hid.

Standing in titanium plated N7 armor, the man held a matte black weapon about three feet in length with a smoking barrel. The figure didn't speak, but simply moved forward to secure the door as he punched the controls to the door.

The man turned back to the operatives, but looked past them where another figure a little taller and a little broader tapped away at the holographic interface. This one did speak.

"Doors are locked for the next twelve minutes Loco."

"Good work Vega, now the hard part," the first one finally spoke in a youthful, but masculine voice.

"Excuse me but what the hell do you two think your doing?" Miranda finally exclaimed as she recovered from the fact these two literally appeared out of midair.

"Ah," the one in the N7 armor said, completely ignoring the Cerberus operative, "There's my knife."

He pulled the knife out from the dead batarian's neck before responding to Miranda, "Lieutenant Commander Richard L. Jenkins, my esteemed colleague with the Mohawk over there," he said pointing to the other soldier, "is Lieutenant James Vega."

Jenkins motioned to the door controls and Vega quickly moved up while the LC pointed the barrel of his highly advanced plasma rifle at the door, "And right now we're making it look like we're trying to stop the batarian hit team from ever leaving."

Jacob shook his head as he moved up to help cover the door, "Wait, you want them to succeed and kill the Council?"

"He never said that," Vega retorted as he opened the door revealing a team of batarians that were trying to cut their way through the door, leaving them easy pickings for the burst setting of Jenkins Storm rifle.

Four humanoid bodies lay with steam lazily rising from holes in their bodies while four humans stepped over their bodies. Miranda didn't trust the two newcomers, what were Alliance operatives doing here? Either the Illusive Man wasn't keeping her informed, or he didn't know they were coming, which she found hard to believe.

Cerberus always monitored everything the Alliance did, nothing in the Alliance was kept from the organizations watchful eyes, or at least, that's what they thought. Truthfully, the Alliance's powerful ships had come as a surprise to Cerberus. None of their listening devices, nor their contacts inside the Alliance had alluded to such developments. A large majority of their misfortune came at the hands of a 'dumb' AI that could easily outsmart the most complex computer programs in Citadel space.

Even if Miranda didn't trust the Alliance soldiers, she still followed them as they led the fight against the batarians. She mentally noted every detail she could get on the two of them. The one called Vega wore a cobalt blue armor rather than his commanding officer's onyx N7 armor and wielded a large Revenant assault rifle with a weapon on his lower back that looked like it is of geth origins.

Miranda's interest wasn't in Vega, however, as she kept her attention on Jenkins. He carried himself with a confidence that his voice indicated he had never had the time to earn. She had yet to see his face, his rebreather blocked everything but his eyes, which were blocked by a gold tinted visor instead.

The femme fatale couldn't recall ever reading a dossier on a Richard L. Jenkins, but she did remember the name as a part of the original ground team on Eden Prime which had jump started the mysterious Emile's career as a spectre.

From what she remembered, he was little more than a standard grunt, just a body filling a pair of combat boots. So what was he doing with the rank of Lieutenant Commander and on a highly dangerous black op little over a year later?

She was shaken from her thoughts as the man occupying her thoughts was snapping his fingers directly in front of her face.

"Hey, you there? The hangar the assassins are in is right through that door so… quit daydreaming."

_Quit daydreaming? Why that pompous, arrogant, idiotic, half cocked Cro-Magnon! _Miranda thought furiously at the young marine's statement. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed both Vega _and_ Jacob smirking at her, she was going to get him for that.

This time Jenkins moved to the door, and Vega stood at point, Revenant assault rifle pointing straight through the door. A nod from the latter and the former opened the door, allowing Vega to unleash a stream of three millimeter tungsten rounds through the door, immediately suppressing any attempt by the batarians to halt the intruders.

Miranda noticed that as soon as the team was into the spacious hangar, Jenkins had disappeared. The three still visible soldiers pounded the batarians as they watched a shuttle go through preflight checks.

Jacob didn't care what the Alliance operatives said; he was going to stop the assassins if he could. As the Kodiak shuttle's engines roared to life, Jacob threw warp after warp into one of the thrusters, hoping to that if he could destroy one thruster, the shuttle wouldn't be able to take off.

Unfortunately for the biotic soldier, the shuttle sped out of the hangar. Jenkins and Vega quickly dispatched the rest of the soldiers with ruthless efficiency, leading Jacob and Miranda to one conclusion.

"You weren't really trying to stop them, were you?" Jacob asked, disgusted that they'd let the batarians get away.

"I thought we made that abundantly clear," Jenkins retorted, "Cortez, bring the Falcon in, we have two extras."

"What makes you think we're going with you?" Miranda asked, flaring her biotics.

"You want to stop the batarians, right?" Vega asked.

"But why did you let them get away?"

"The Council is taking a little too long in going to war against the batarians. So if we take down a batarian assassination attempt right in front of their eyes…"

"Then they'll jump on board a lot quicker, clever."

"And risky, a little too risky for my taste," Jacob retorted.

Vega snorted, "Then don't come along, but we shot down your shuttle and took the pilot, so your only way off this rock is us."

Jacob tried to keep the anger off of his face, the punk with the Mohawk was really getting under his skin. Before it could turn into a fight, however, a noise caught everyone's attention.

A gunship, similar in shape to a Mantis gunship but with a wider body to hold passengers, floated into the bay. The ship sported fierce looking turrets hanging under each wing, and missile pods integrated above the cockpit, but what caught Miranda's attention was the aperture on the nose. It looked like a focusing lens for a GARDIAN laser, but more sophisticated.

"Everyone on that ship, and Cortez, take it easy on the maneuvers, you know Vega has a weak stomach."

"Esteban, if you even think about pulling a barrel roll while I'm in here, I'll fuckin rip your head off!" the jarhead yelled as he strapped himself in as tight as he could.

"No worries big guy, after all, I'll only be chasing a highly trained pilot carrying five assassins through the heaviest hour of traffic in the most populated space in the galaxy, I'm sure I'll have to pull far more complex maneuvers!" the flyboy cackled.

The gunship entered FTL, and kept a respectable distance from the Kodiak, so as to not to let the batarians see the advanced ship trailing them.

Inside the ship, Jenkins began hammering the two Cerberus operatives with questions before Miranda could ask anything.

"Why the hell are two Cerberus operatives trying to stop assassins headed for the Council?"

"Why do you think? There is a human sitting on that Council."

"Sweetheart, I've seen the shit Cerberus is responsible for, and I know that one human life isn't worth the time it takes you to take a shit, much less give one about a leader you don't have influence over."

"We're not terrorists…"

"Bullshit, missy, you two specifically may not fit the bill as terrorists, but Cerberus is a terrorist organization, sure as shit."

"If you call me sweetheart, or missy one more time, I'll…"

"You'll what? Rip me apart with your biotics? Break my arms and legs in hand to hand combat? Torture me into spilling how I know all this about Cerberus and you? I have no doubt you could do it Miss Lawson, I've seen your dossier, but don't think for a second that those things frighten me."

Miranda just glared at the gold tinted visor preventing the two from making solid eye contact. Finally she let out a huff and asked, "How do you know all this about us?"

"The Alliance has been keeping a very close eye on Cerberus for a while now. Your 'Illusive Man' does do one hell of a job keeping himself hidden, and that's probably the only reason your organization is still in one piece. But you, oh Miss Lawson, we've been keeping a _very_ close eye on you."

"How close?"

"I sold you a latte the other day."

"Bullshit."

"Carmel coating, double whip cream, triple shot of espresso, and just one pump of vanilla, sound about right?"

Miranda resumed glaring at the gold tinted visor, trying very hard to bring up the man's face. If there was one way the genetically perfect human was flawed, it was in her love of the perfect cup of coffee. That meant that she had been served by over a dozen men, and anyone of them could be him.

Finally, the raven haired operative asked a question about the two of them, "Why are you two here? If you wanted the batarian assassins to reach the Council, then why didn't you just wait for them to start on their own accord?"

"Because the two of you were headed here, that meant that we had to slow you up just enough to let the assassins escape. Plus a good show of our attempts to stop them lets them believe that their home free. They can be their before we supposedly would be able to warn C-Sec of the assassins."

"Clever."

"Yeah, it wasn't my idea; I'm pretty much just repeating what I was told at the briefing," Jenkins admitted, "I'm more like Mr. Taylor here, this is all a little too risky for my taste."

"Ah Loco, you always pretend to be so cold, but the senoritas? They know just how warm you are," Vega teased.

"Vega, unless you wish to be thrown from the Falcon at FTL I suggest you shut your mouth."

The muscular marine just smirked, quite pleased with his efforts to embarrass his CO in front of an admittedly gorgeous woman, "Sure thing, Loco."

The rest of the ride was spent with Miranda trying to get as many details on the gunship they were riding in, the plasma rifle Jenkins had across his lap, and narrowing down what Jenkins actually looked like.

Both Alliance operatives gave nothing, providing Miranda with detailed answers that never actually gave her anything. The Cerberus operative found herself getting frustrated with the constant blocks. Finally, she gave up and resigned herself to lift the plasma rifle off of Jenkins as soon as she had the opportunity.

"We're dropping out of FTL, right on the tail of the batarians, I highly suggest you buckle up," Cortez chirped over his shoulder.

"Vega grab a bag, you're gonna need it," he added as an after thought.

The jarhead's reaction was instantaneous, and brought a chuckle out of Jenkins and Jacob. The marine immediately scrambled for the small compartment above his head, forgetting that he had strapped himself into his seat too tightly to actually reach the ceiling. An impressive feat considering the slightly cramped quarters of the Falcon.

Outside in the cold vacuum of space, the clogged traffic lines of the Citadel bore witness to a plain Kodiak shuttle performing a dive at breakneck speeds straight towards the Presidium Tower, followed shortly after by a much faster unknown vehicle with a barely noticeable HSA logo on its side.

Cortez put the Falcon in a spin as he wove the medium sized gunship through clogged traffic lanes while keeping a radar contact with the assassins. The pilot smirked as he heard Vega unleashing his lunch into a small plastic bag, but was far too preoccupied with evading a group of C-Sec shuttles trying to flag him down.

That was the unfortunate part about black ops; the law wasn't necessarily on your side. Cortez blasted past a group of utility trucks right before they clogged the entire lane, preventing the C-Sec shuttles from pursuing.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are preparing to land, we here at Cortez Flights appreciate your business and we hope you remember us the next time you need to chase down batarian black ops teams."

"Alright this is it!" Jenkins shouted to the people there, "Hold your breath because Cortez ain't stopping for us."

"WHAT?!" Miranda exclaimed. Before Jenkins could bother himself to explain, he wrapped his arms around her waist and hurled the two of them from the gunships crew bay.

Miranda held her breath as she felt the coldness of space against her skin, the smooth bumps in the titanium plates of the armor holding her, and the rush of wind as they followed the batarian shuttle through the massive window behind the Council's customary position.

Jenkins immediately righted himself as soon as he and the Cerberus operative were in space, pointing his feet towards the floor and activating a special feature installed into his armor.

The armor plates on his feet opened up to reveal chemical thrusters just as his shoulder blades slid back to reveal another pair of thrusters, slowing the pair's descent enough to land safely on the floor directly behind the besieged Council.

The emergency mass effect field kept the atmosphere inside the Council Chambers, meaning that Miranda could take a much needed breath as Jenkins moved to push Tevos behind a console to protect her from the batarian's fire.

The Kodiak shuttle had a small mass accelerator mounted on the front, and had been used to clear the Council Chambers of C-Sec while the assassins pressed the Council. Both Anderson and Sparatus, with years of military training, had immediately taken cover as soon as the batarians had crashed through.

"Councilors!" Jenkins called to the former captain and general, "here."

The marine tossed a pair of Carnifax hand cannons to the two as he heard Vega and Jacob touch down behind him, "Miranda, Jacob, put up a barrier to protect the Councilors, Vega give me cover fire."

Surprisingly, the two Cerberus agents followed his orders without question. Miranda and Jacob immediately had a blue dome sitting over the four Councilors, with Sparatus and Anderson firing suppression shots at the assassins.

Vega moved to Tevos' terminal, using it as cover as he slapped a new ammo block into his Revenant, "Firing!"

Jenkins leapt from the platform the Councilors were using and landed behind a decorative plant, keeping hidden while his active camo unit pooled power. He leaned out of cover and mentally took stock of the situation.

Five assassins armed with smuggled Reach assault rifles and decked out in powerful armor. The kinetic barriers won't be a problem for his Storm rifle, but the thick armor would be. It appeared that one of the assassins was preparing a grenade, getting ready to take out Vega so they could move onto the Council.

Jenkins didn't wait for his camo unit and charged out towards the batarians, firing his Storm rifle on fully automatic. The batarian armed with the grenade had just armed the explosive as he fell to the barrage of cobalt blasts, causing the grenade to roll at his comrade's feet.

The explosion threw Jenkins back and ripped apart a couple of the batarians standing near it, but left the leader completely unharmed as he found cover quickly enough. Jenkins rose to his feet to find the six foot five, three hundred pound batarian right on top of him.

A fist smashed into his helmet, causing the visor to go to static, forcing him to rip it from his head just in time to receive another fist straight to his face. The batarian's armor sported subtle spikes a little over one centimeter in length. The result of the strike against Jenkins was three large slashes over the right side of his face.

That didn't stop the former marine though, and he swept the batarian's legs throwing him to the floor next to him. Jenkins ripped the six inch combat knife from his left shoulder pad and slashed it towards the batarian's neck.

The knife scraped against the metal floor of the Chambers, and the batarian assassin grabbed the back of Jenkins' head, attempting to slam the human's head against the floor.

Instead of finishing the former marine, however, the large batarian found a fist flying up into his crotch. He wore armor that covered all of his vitals, but unfortunately didn't wear any armor to protect his family jewels.

The batarian struggled to remain standing under the intensive pain, giving Jenkins time to rip the helmet from his foe's head and smash his fist into his skull.

The former marine turned around to regard the Council, Vega, and the two Cerberus operatives, "Clear."

Vega hopped down to where his CO was standing, "Damn, Loco, that's gonna be a helluva scar."

"Yeah, I suppose. How's the Council?"

"Still alive, no injuries that I could see."

"Good, Miranda, I would appreciate it if you would give me my rifle back," Jenkins said while Miranda attempted to look as innocent as possible, to no avail.

"This attack by a batarian military group can only mean one thing!" Sparatus barked as he resumed his position at his console, "I move that the Council declare war on the Batarian Hegemony!"

**Gasp! It has finally come to a head! War against the Batarian Hegemony! Tell me what you guys think about this chapter, especially my take on Miranda and Jacob's story about how they foiled an assassination attempt on the Council by batarians. People who've gone through the whole conversation with Jacob in ME2 will know what I'm talking about.**

**Review, don't want to write what you don't want to read.**


	30. Hooked on Blood

**Sorry about that guys, I originally posted this chapter but I felt that I ended it with no satisfying conclusion and that I was missing a golden opportunity to show some of the dynamics between Emile and Voro, and Emile's new problem.**

**Hey guys, I know it has been a bit, but I kind of got caught up playing Skyrim and watching American Dad at the same time on Netflix. I'm glad I could find the time to squeeze in another chapter since you guys seem to enjoy it so much. I can't be sure how long this chapter will be, and I apologize for the previous inconsistencies in my previous chapters.**

**One reviewer, Fulliron I believe, asked whether or not Jenkins armor is based on a watered down version of MJOLNIR. It wasn't going to be originally, but now that you say it, that's a way better idea than what I was going to go with.**

**The basic layout of his armor is a thinner, lighter version of the GEN 2 MJOLNIR in Halo 4. He does have the nacelles on his back, but think of them looking more like ODST shoulder pads running over his shoulder blades. It will still have the bulky yet sleek look of Spartan IV armor, but it will not have the same power source since ME tech can barely make one that a Spartan or a krogan can carry around. Since his old helmet broke in the previous chapter, I will be replacing it with my favorite helmet from the Halo 4 multiplayer, the soldier helmet with a gold visor. Obviously the armor is black with the red N7 stripe, but it has serious callbacks to Halo.**

**Before you ask, Vega's armor is more like a cobalt blue ODST BDU with a white visor. It will still have the ability to work in a vacuum, whereas the ODST BDU leaves the fingers exposed. Both armors will have plasma shields, weak ones, about the same strength as an elite minor on normal which as you should know, is pitiful.**

**deadal as brought another interesting matter to my attention. He/she believes that the active camouflage Jenkins and Vega were running around with are too powerful, I agree. That's why when your camo is up, your shields are down. After the camo is disengaged, your shields have to recharge, is that a big enough weakness for you?**

**Okay, enough answering your reviews in the author's notes. Don't worry Khaos Fury, I didn't forget the biofoam, it may even make an appearance in this chapter. Speaking of this chapter, this is the very first battle in the war against the batarians! Jorge gets to see his new ship, Emile gets some guests on the Normandy since only Voro and Trip are left from the ground squad.**

Jorge sighed as he saw the shuttle touch down on the landing pad in Nos Astra, Illium.

"Oh come now Jorge," the beautiful asari next to him said, "most people are excited to receive command of their own ship!"

"Benezia," Jorge began as he turned to the matriarch, "you now I'm not a ship's captain, I'm a foot soldier, a mindless grunt."

Matriarch Benezia just shook her head at her bondmate's stubborn attitude, "As you asked me once, 'Are you done feeling sorry for yourself?'"

Jorge smiled at the memory, "I suppose your right. I'll see you in a few months."

As the massive man turned to move towards the shuttle, Benezia reached out and grabbed his arm. When Jorge turned to regard her again she reached up and grabbed the back of his head and forced him into a long kiss.

When they finally broke apart, gasping for air, Benezia said, "When you get back, I'll have a bottle of Thessian wine waiting for you."

Jorge walked away stiffly without even murmuring a response. The last time Benezia had bought Thessian wine, she had had Jorge drink it off of her naked body.

"Did you have a good shore leave, sir?"

Jorge just glared at the smirking turian women sitting across from him in the shuttle.

"I'm your first officer aboard the Serpent's Tongue, sir," Jorge ran his eyes over her. She was about six and a half feet tall, shorter than the average male turian, light 'skin,' blue face tattoos, and was wearing an iron colored dress uniform.

"What's your name?"

"Commander Nyria Arterius, sir."

Jorge raised an eyebrow, "Any relation to…"

Nyria gave a turian equivalent of a smile, "No, Captain, not that I'm aware of. Then again, I don't look anything like my father, maybe I am his 'bastard child.'"

Jorge smirked back at the joke before turning to a set of data pads. On them were information on his new ship and the complement of ground vehicles, fighters, and new developmental projects. He recognized a lot of UNSC based vehicles, but that made sense. The Council was no where near prepared for the grueling ground based combat wars demanded, not like the UNSC was. All they had ever prepared for were chasing off pirates and slavers, not fighting against disciplined military units on the ground without real support from above.

It appeared that the Serpent's Tongue was stocked with all manner of new weaponry: hundreds of Sparrowhawk anti-armor gunships, hundreds of Vulture class gunships, dozens of Albatross heavy dropships, and plenty of the brand new Falcon class dropship.

The Falcon looked like a cross between the Pelican dropship and the UH Falcon from Jorge's universe, but armed to the teeth with side mounted mass accelerators, in-wing missile pods, and a nose mounted spartan laser. It also had the ability to go to FTL, whereas the rest of the aforementioned war machines were bound to the Serpent's Tongue.

Ground vehicles seemed to be the only ones not too terribly influenced. Mako tanks seemed to be the workhorse vehicle for the campaign, though there were dozens of Warthog fast response vehicles and Grizzly heavy tanks at the ready. What caught Jorge's eyes, however, was the dozen or so Cyclops mechanized battle tanks.

The Cyclops tank looked like a metal block with a machine gun and missile battery strapped to it sitting on top of two twelve foot tall legs. Jorge recognized it from his days on Reach, an experimental prototype that was about to go into production in the next few years. Jorge would have to ask Emile where the Alliance got the idea to start making these.

Jorge went over the specs for his new ship, not that he hadn't already memorized every single detail about it. Two MAC cannons that could fire three rounds per charge, an under slung Onager cannon for a secondary offensive weapon while the MAC's recharge, tertiary mass accelerator cannons, dreadnaught to frigate grade, for close quarters ship to ship battles, and the coup de grace, fifteen plasma torpedo launchers.

For defensive measures the ships first line of defense is the biggest and strongest kinetic barrier in Council space, possibly in the entire galaxy. The kinetic barrier is so strong that for a true test of its strength, they had had fired the Serpent's Tongue's own MAC cannon at a replica and the barrier had withstood a full three rounds. Truthfully, the kinetic barrier on the Serpent's Tongue was a fluke, and would normally have been considered impossible by anyone with half a mind for the physics involved.

The second line of defense is the Grindell/Galilean non-linear rifle point defense system. The new laser system had retained its old nickname from Reach as the spartan laser system and replaced the old GARDIAN laser point defense system. These lasers were more accurate, more energy and thermally efficient, and more powerful. They provided the defensive measure against any torpedoes or fighters that get too close to the ship.

As the last line of defense, six meter thick, super dense, titanium A battle plating stands between the crew and hostile weaponry. The incredibly thick and strong battle plating was extremely expensive, but when you consider that it would take the Turian Hierarchy's new Thanix cannon nearly five minutes to cut through, it was well worth it.

Still, no matter how new a ship was, there were always plans to retrofit the ship. Ever since the Turian Hierarchy came up with the new Thanix cannon there have been plans to replace many of the frigate grade mass accelerators with Thanix cannons. Then of course there were these new SOEIV tubes that had been a most recent edition.

_Wait, what?_ Jorge thought as he reread the last data pad. Sure enough the Serpent's Tongue had been outfitted with new SOEIV tubes. _So, they're even gonna copy the ODST's, what's next, Spartans?_

Jorge hoped they didn't try and replicate the Spartan II or III program. The Reapers may be coming, but Spartan's weren't necessary to fight them, better ships were. Even so, Jorge knew that their own brand of super soldiers was too much for any government to say no to, and that it was only a matter of time before the Council tried to replicate the Spartan program on innocent children.

Shaking his head from its current train of thought, Jorge looked over the roster for the new ODST troopers stationed on the Serpent's Tongue. Almost all of them were human, and the rest were turians who had failed the psych test to become officers in the Hierarchy

One name on the roster stood out in particular. _Ashley… wasn't she in officer training?_

Jorge still remembered the first time he had officially met Williams, while they were busy snogging that turian, Garrus, like a horny teenager.

The rest of the crew roster held no surprises for him, and he didn't bother memorizing every name he read, since the list was over five thousand names long for the entire ship's crew.

"Sir look, there it is," Nyria called for his attention.

Jorge looked to where she was pointing and saw what she was looking at, it _was_ hard to miss.

In the endless black of space hung a massive steel colored ship surrounded by the miniscule lights of dropships landing and disembarking. At over two and a half kilometers, the Serpent's Tongue made its escort fleet look like mice in the shadow of a lion.

The dropship weaved through the escort fleet on its way to the massive Nebula class dreadnaught, giving Jorge a good view of the other ships he was going to be in command of. Fifty frigates of varying races, twenty cruisers from the Turian Hierarchy and Asari Republic, and five Alliance dreadnaughts composed the escort fleet.

The setup would be considered a coup by the humans were it not for the fact that every ship in the fleet was manned by a mixed crew. This was a bold move, not only for the flagship of the Citadel to be manned by a multi-species crew, but for ships made by one species being manned by a crew of another species. Jorge knew it was because the Council wanted to consolidate the fleets into one fleet directly under the control of the Council and they needed to know which species made the best ships for mixed species crews to operate.

It was already known that the HSA made the most powerful dreadnaughts, and since the Alliance were the ones pushing for a consolidated defense fleet, they were already designed with turian and salarian crewmates in mind. No adjustments were made on account of any asari crewmates as there isn't much difference between an asari and a human female.

The shuttle shuddered a little as it touched down inside one of the huge hangars of the Serpent's Tongue and Jorge and Nyria exited the shuttle and headed for the bridge. Nyria used the trip to ask questions she couldn't when Jorge had had his head buried in data pads.

"When is the attack scheduled for sir?"

"Five days while the second fleet gathers at the relay outside batarian space," he answered.

"Is this all for our fleet, sir?"

"Yes."

"It seems a little small for attacking a batarian military colony."

"The second fleet is over a thousand ships strong, and we are on perhaps the strongest ship in the galaxy."

"Still, sir, there will be over two thousand ships waiting for us, the Hegemony isn't taking this lightly."

"Exactly why the other fleet is letting themselves be seen."

"So that way, we can show up right behind their fleet, land troops on the ground, and then they have to invade their own colony while fighting on another front," Nyria concluded.

"Sharp as a tack I see," Jorge remarked to the turian's confusion.

The two entered the bridge at the front of the ship and the sight of the fleet spread out before the ship. Jorge quickly became acquainted with the bridge crew on a more personal level, rather than just reading the reports their previous superior officers supplied him.

The helmsman was human, a kid from Eden Prime named Jonathan, not John, Jonathan, the communications officer was an asari in her matron stage named Elara. There was his second in command Nyria Arterius who was proving to be a very competent second in command, though Jorge would reserve his judgment until the ship saw battle. The weapons officer was a twenty two year old salarian called Chalak. The CAG, a turian male, Derin, was present on the bridge, though it appeared he'd rather be out flying a fighter then relaying orders to his pilots.

There were several other people on the bridge, guard detail, and technicians, people that were in and out so often that Jorge didn't bother memorizing names or getting to really know any of them. The next five days were going to be long ones, that much Jorge could tell.

The Spartan kept his fleet busy over the next five days by running battle drills, more for himself than to test the commanders of the fleet's ships. Oddly enough for the large human, he had found and corrected several flaws in the fleet's formations when running battle drills, devised strategies for the mismatched ships to work together, and had his own ship running more efficiently than initial estimates for the Nebula class ship had been. Sure enough, Jorge was growing into his new role as Captain, even though he held the authority of a Fleet Admiral.

Finally, at 1100 hours on the fifth day, the order came in, attack. Jorge gave the order and stood at the window showing the entire fleet, watching fifty ships disappear into blue portals courtesy of the slipspace drives given by the Alliance. Over a third of the fleet had disappeared by the time he saw the Serpent's Tongue own, much larger, portal open up just fifty kilometers in front of the ship.

"Roll the bridge back into the armor belt," Jorge ordered, "Elara, get a comm. line with the diversion fleet, tell them we're on route. Chalak, what's the status of the weapons?"

While Chalak delivered the answer, the Spartan could feel the imperceptible shift of the hydraulics pushing the bridge deeper into the ship, "All kinetic weaponry, fully charged, Spartan laser point defense system, fully charged, plasma torpedoes, offline for calibration."

"I want those plasma torpedoes ready to go when we hit Kirhak, understood?" Jorge replied.

"Of course, mere calibration, plasma torpedoes will be ready, disruptor torpedo tubes, loaded, rapier missile pods, primed, weapons check complete."

"Good, Elara?"

"Diversion fleet commander requests our ETA?"

"Four hours, keep an active comm. link with them, I want updates on their end of the battle. Jonathan, when we get there I want you to put our belly in the upper atmosphere."

The pilot nodded but Nyria had reservations about that part of the plan.

"What about the batarian's surface defenses?"

Jorge smiled back at her, "Oh, we've got a guy working on that right now."

"Okay, here is the plan ladies and gentlemen," Emile yelled over the sound of the assembled spectres socializing, "The Normandy is going to slip in just behind the fourth planet in the system, keeping us away from prying eyes so then we can cloak, hit the dirt, and take out Kirhak's surface weaponry."

"Yours truly will be going first! I'll secure the first AA tower and the accompanying LZ. While I'm gone, Zorro will be in charge… yes Nihlus?"

"Who's Zorro and why is _he_ in charge?" the turian spectre said to the approving murmurs of the rest of the assembled spectres.

"The Council put me in charge of this operation, this is my ship, and I will pick my second in command, thank you very much," Emile retorted, "and as to just _who_ Zorro is, maybe you should just ask _what_ Zorro is, but I'll let him answer that himself because here he comes."

Emile turned back towards the elevator doors as they slid open just as a nine foot tall, fifteen hundred pound sangheili put his zealot headdress, adding to the impressive and intimidating figure he cut against the steel grey background the elevator provided. The massive alien had to duck just to fit inside the elevator, so when he stepped out and stood to his full height he thoroughly established himself as the biggest living thing in the room.

"Good of you to join us Zorro."

"My apologies, Spartan, but I do not ever recall my armor fitting so tightly," Voro Vadam replied in English, which he rarely used ever since teaching Emile how to understand Sangheili.

Emile had been a quick learner, of course having a surgically enhanced mind and equally enhanced ears to pick up on the nuances of the metallic language, the process had only taken a few months, though the Spartan would still misinterpret what Voro said sometimes.

"S'all right Zorro," Emile replied, smirking under his helmet while turning on the video recorder in his helmet so he could capture the spectres' faces when he turned around, "Say hello to the team you'll be leading while I'm clearing the LZ."

The huge sangheili looked over the four assembled spectres, two asari, a turian, and a salarian. Voro turned to Emile and said in his metallic language, "They look as disciplined as a group of Unggoy."

The four spectres just looked on, confused, as Emile laughed at whatever it was that the massive alien had said, "Yeah well, you won't have to lead em for long, just until I can join back up with you guys."

"Commander we're coming up on drop point one," Joker's voice interrupted Voro from responding.

"Right, remember, Zorro's in charge while I'm gone, oh, and don't forget Trip!" Emile shouted as he leaned down to rub the huge varren's head "See ya on the surface boy! Don't forget, batarians only, I know you like salarians but you leave Spectre Bau alone!"

Trip just barked at his master's command, and Jondum Bau looked at the varren with a feeling of apprehension filling him while the rest of the spectres looked on curiously as the cargo bay door opened and a mass effect field came into existence between them and the void of space.

Emile grabbed a special piece of equipment from the floor as he walked towards the bleak visage of space. He slid it onto his back, revealing the words M-SPEC Reentry Pack to the assembled troops behind him. If any of them were wondering why the steel colored backpack had the word reentry on it, their curiosity was satisfied when Emile leapt from the cargo hold.

"Is he insane?"

"Spirits, why would he do something like that?!"

"Goddess, I saw it, but I still don't believe it! Is he suicidal?"

"Silence! The Spartan knows what he is doing, and I have seen his kind do such things before."

Emile smirked as he listened to his new teams reactions while his reentry pack's temperature began to rise. Soon he could see the red streaks of flames passing by him as he fell, back first, towards the surface of Kirhak. The Spartan watched his altimeter carefully, waiting for the exact point to… _NOW!_

Emile rolled his body and went spread eagle as his M-SPEC reentry pack deployed the metal chute, similar to the ones on an SOEIV. The chute looked like an 'X' above him as it slowed the Spartan down just enough to survive.

The reentry pack finally let go of the metal chute and Emile flipped to his back again as he started to accelerate. The Spartan locked his armor, making him immobile as well as charging his shields to extraordinary levels to help absorb the impact.

The Spartan cradled his shotgun and Mattock to his chest, protecting them from the massive force he was about to be subjected to.

**BOOM!**

To the batarians standing guard at the AA tower, it was an unnervingly close meteorite, but to the batarians standing in the field that moved forward to get a closer look, it was death itself.

"RAAGH!" Emile roared as he leapt from the smoking crater. The first batarian, a simple soldier, couldn't react fast enough to even paint an expression of shock on his four eyed face, but had his face caved in by an armored fist.

Emile swung his bloody right fist to the side and snapped the neck of another batarian through brute force alone while his left hand snapped the weapons he carried with him to his back. He looked around and saw only the black smoke left from his entry through atmosphere and his collision with the planet.

Emile activated his 'X-ray' function on his VISR, showing four bright orange figures against a blue background. Emile leapt across the crater he had left to the four batarian soldiers who were still looking for the source of the bestial roar they had heard earlier.

His hands found the heads of the two closest soldiers and brought them together, smashing through the ceramic of their helmets and crushing their skulls against the others.

Emile spun to the right, bringing his left fist down into the troopers gut, doubling him over so the Spartan could spin around him, bring his right palm over the alien's face, and snap the four eyed humanoid's neck.

The Spartan completed his spin, and was face to face with the last soldier. The ceramic brown helmet the batarian wore hid his expression, but the trembling was all Emile needed to see to know that the alien in front of him was terrified. The fourth Spartan of Noble Team brought his head down and bashed his head through the batarians helmet and his skull.

Still in 'X-ray' vision, Emile didn't need to wipe the blood off of his visor to see his objective just a mere two hundred meters away, lit up bright green punctuated by the neon orange of enemy soldiers within its depths.

The bloody visage of the skull seemed to smile as it regarded its new prey, waiting patiently for a report from the soldiers they had sent to check out the meteorite.

Emile burst from the smoke, running at over fifty kilometers per hour and crossing the gap of the flat field before any watchful eyes could get a clear look at the monster bearing down on them. He was so fast, in fact, that many of the AA tower's personal dismissed it as a piece of debris from the meteorite, perhaps it was a satellite and something exploded off of it, but the guards at ground level knew the truth, but knew too late at a flurry of fists were their first vision, but a bloody skull carved from a solid gold helmet was their last.

The guards just inside the door had heard the brief, but loud screams of their comrades just beyond the barrier, and were nervously approaching the steel roll up door to unlatch the locks at the ground. Before they could, however, the door was ripped from the ground bound latches and thrown upwards, revealing the bloody visage of death itself…

"Are you sure he's alive? All we're getting on the comms is screams," Nihlus asked.

"Do you not recognize those screams, turian?" Voro asked as the five moved towards the AA tower under cloak, followed by a lone varren, "Those are the screams of the dying, of those falling before the blood thirsty beast."

Four invisible heads turned to the largest shimmer leading them across the wide, flat field that was only interrupted by a small, smoking crater in the center of the field. The four spectres, as spectres, knew Emile's story, at least about how he was from another dimension, so they were well aware of what the massive alien in front of them was, and they found it disturbing that such large and deadly creatures could be brought to a quivering mess of piss and tears by a human as Voro had implied happened in the past.

"RAAGH!" a voice broke over the comm. line the team had with Emile, before the sound of heavy breathing and finally, "Clear."

"Spartan, we are entering the building now," Voro informed the Spartan.

"Head to the top room, that's where I am," Emile replied, "Tell Jondum he's got his work cut out for him."

Trip reached the building first, sniffing the metal door that had fallen back into place after Emile had torn through. Voro lifted the steel door, and cringed slightly at the grizzly scene inside.

Bodies lay strewn across the floor, some missing their arms, others missing their heads. Blood coated the walls, interrupted by hand prints of poor soldiers attempting to run from their tormenter, only to be dragged away.

"Spirits, I don't see bullet wounds in any of these bodies!"

"That's what you can focus on!" one of the asari spectres asked as she tried not to vomit, "These were people! Our enemies, maybe, but people and they were _slaughtered!_"

Voro snorted, "They stood in his way, so he got rid of them in the most efficient way he could."

"The most efficient? Goddess, there is a reason he brought his weapons with him!"

"Because this tower will soon be under siege by enemy forces, and he will need all the ammo he has for the upcoming fight," the sangheili retorted as he led the group towards the AA tower's control room.

Voro was not without concern, however. He had seen it recently, the hate, the bloodlust, it grew with every battle and infected the only peace the Spartan had ever known. Even the varren could sense that something was consuming Emile, leaving a boiling rage simmering just beneath the surface.

The five entered the control room just behind Trip who was all too excited to see his master, "Hey buddy, you been a good boy?"

The varren just barked stupidly, but Voro could see the apprehension that filled the varren, he was just as worried as the sangheili was for the Spartan.

"Jondum, I already hacked the AA gun's targeting system but it looks like there's a pretty hefty firewall between this one and the other guns, the fleet at the relay has already attacked but the second fleet will be here in an hour, we need those guns."

"Of course, Emile, I will get on it right away!" the salarian replied as he hurried over to a terminal and began furiously tapping away at the holographic interface.

"Alright people we've got incoming!"

Emile led the way down the steps and towards the tower's battlements just as the first batarian shuttle landed in the open field Emile had landed in…

"Exiting slipspace in 3…2…1!" Jonathan said.

Jorge felt the ships shudder slightly as it shot out of its blue portal and fell in line with the rest of the fleet.

"Picking up 500 enemy contacts!"

"That's better than a five to one ratio," Nyria said, concerned, "Sir, we can't win this with our ships alone!"

"Stay calm," Jorge ordered, "I want wolf packs Cobra and Viper to launch now!"

Outside of the Serpent's Tongue massive hull, three huge doors on either side of the ship opened up revealing the Normandy class frigates hidden within the ship's huge depths.

The frigates shot out, three from the starboard side clustering to make wolf pack Cobra, and the three from the left side clustering to make the wolf pack Viper.

"I want Cobra to focus on enemy dreadnaughts and Viper to provide cover for the turian cruisers headed down to the surface."

"Sir, I'm still reading the AA guns online, if we try to send any ships down there they'll be destroyed!"

"Don't worry about the guns, they're on our side," Jorge said to the crew's confusion, "Now get the asari cruisers and frigates to form a defensive perimeter around the Alliance dreadnaughts."

"Sir, AA guns are firing, at the batarians?" Nyria finished confusedly.

"Bout time, Punk," Jorge said under his breath, "Get a firing solution for our MAC guns on the batarian flagship, Chalak."

"… Done!"

"What are you waiting for? Fire!"

The ship shuddered as a 600 ton slug sped along a magnetic rail at ridiculous speeds before being launched out into space headed straight for the largest Hegemony ship in orbit of Kirhak. The dreadnaught never stood a chance as the massive slug couldn't be bothered by kinetic barriers and vaporized a good portion of the ship as it went on to core one cruiser and clip the engines off another.

"Good shot, Jonathan put our belly in the upper atmosphere, Elara tell the defense perimeter to make a ring around us!"

"Sir, we're not making any offensive impact, but casualties are at a minimum."

"Chalak get firing solutions for our mass accelerators on the enemy fleet, tell Elara when you need the defensive perimeter to open up and they will."

Huge barrels on the dorsal plating of Serpent's Tongue spun and pointed at the distant blinking lights. White streaks burst from the barrels and passed by the white floral shaped silhouettes of asari cruisers and the mismatched frigates accompanying them to strike against the pushing Hegemony ships. Several batarian cruisers went up in a bright, nova like explosion, and many more pulled back, sporting venting hulls and disabled weapons.

"Captain!" Jorge turned to Nyria, "One hundred ODST's have dropped and the last of Wave One is away!"

"Good, Jonathan, pull our belly out of the atmosphere. Elara tell the Alliance dreadnaughts to form up on us, we're gonna really join this fight."

The Serpent's Tongue rose from the atmosphere, pulling small amounts of vapor with it, and pushed forward towards the reforming batarian fleet, intent on crushing them. Five Alliance dreadnaughts came along side the mammoth ship and together they spewed white thunderbolts that crushed the batarian fleet before them.

Perhaps the overwhelming firepower of these six ships wouldn't be so overwhelming were it not for the giant guns on the surface of the planet shooting at the batarians every time they attempted to reform their ranks and push back.

Even if the Hegemony were to be able to reform their ranks, their dreadnaughts that bolstered the fleet and added deadly firepower were being destroyed by fast, agile, and undetectable frigates wielding firepower that didn't belong on ships their size.

Back at the defensive circle the asari cruisers had set up over the main city of Kirhak, small groups of batarian ships attempted to break their defensive lines, but found themselves pushed back into the waiting arms of wolf pack Viper who circled the defensive fleet with their stealth systems active, picking off any stragglers and delivering précised and crushing strikes against attacking battle groups.

Back with the Serpent's Tongue, mass accelerator rounds pounded the enormous ship's shields, but not one made it past the incredible barrier.

Jorge stood over the holographic display of the battle taking place over Kirhak, "Launch plasma torpedoes against the remaining command ships, we need to get back to our boys and girls on the ground."

"Torpedoes away! … Direct hits confirmed, enemy fleet down to less than one hundred strong."

"Good work everyone, Elara, what's the status of the diversionary fleet?"

"They've just broken through and are chasing the batarians back here. Heavy casualties to both fleets, but far more to the Hegemony, they only have three hundred ships left to our five, sir."

"Inform Desolas of our situation here. Jonathan, get us back over that city!"

That was essentially it, Jorge had won his first engagement as a fleet's commander. Despite their crushing victory, however, Jorge's fleet was not without losses. The Serpent's Tongue plowed through the debris of several asari cruisers and over a dozen frigates of various makes and models to reach its destination, but for now, the battle in space was relatively over, just mop up of the remaining ships. The rest was up to the soldiers on the ground…

_Well today has been interesting,_ Chief Petty Officer Ashley Williams thought as she hit the release lever on her drop pod causing the door to fly off as shaped charges exploded.

First, she had been dropped in a small metal coffin from low orbit, then, while free falling, had watched batarian defense weapons shoot down the batarian defense fleet while leaving the turian cruisers free to touch down wherever they pleased, and finally she had landed in aforementioned metal coffin.

_Well at least this is familiar,_ the marine thought as she emerged from her pod to the sound of gunfire.

Ashley dove behind cover just as a hail of mass accelerator rounds pounded her pod. She peaked over her cover, an overturned skycar that was undoubtedly a casualty from her drop, and took stock of the situation.

Her squad had, for the most part, landed just north of her. She had to regroup with them and take command of the situation before the batarians really went after them. First she had to deal with the four soldiers pinning her down, though.

Williams popped out of cover for less than a second, just enough time to bring down the barrier of one of the batarians and finish him off with her Reach assault rifle.

After the other troopers forced her back into cover, Ashley popped a smoke at the batarians' feet, shrouding them in smoke and giving Williams an excuse to try out her new helmet's VISR system.

While not as sophisticated as Emile's 'X-ray' vision, Ashley's FoF identifier was able to outline the three batarians in red even though they were obscured by the marine's smoke grenade. A couple of bursts put down the four eyed aliens and let Williams continue on to her squad.

A few miles away, Kaidan Alenko stepped off of the Falcon dropship and on to a paved road leading straight into the heart of Kirhak City. Next to the biotic, a line of Makos, Warthogs, and even two Grizzlies waited for the order to move in.

"Okay boys and girls," Kaidan said turning to his squad, "we are the biotic escort for the Fifth Mechanized battalion."

Some of the soldiers under his command looked over to the column of vehicles as he said this. The squad was mostly asari, with a few biotic humans.

"Remember, barriers first, and then attack. Okay, load up people; we've got a long road ahead of us!"

All around the city, lines of heavily armed and armored vehicles began rumbling towards the delta hub. Warthogs zoomed into heavily entrenched batarian positions, hammered their defenses, and left before any four eyed alien with a heavy weapon could get a lock. Makos set up defensive positions and led charges down into softened batarian defenses, always backed up by at least one Grizzly.

Any ambushes on the war machines were quickly dealt with by a series of powerful biotic blows. The escorts always made sure the vehicles reached their destination, whether by providing an extra layer of defense with barriers, or by picking out batarian infantrymen from their cover and slamming them into the sides of the narrow streets.

Above the streets, roaming the skies were all manner of gunships and dropships. Whenever a group of ODST's were pinned by batarian armor, a Sparrowhawk gunship would fly around a corner and light it up with missiles, machine guns, or a cobalt colored Spartan laser.

If an armored column was having trouble breaching batarian defenses, Vulture gunships would fly in and destroy the defenders under a hail of missiles.

Marine platoons that were taking heavy casualties could always rely on the speedy response of Falcon dropships to come in and get them back to the triage centers set up around the multitude of turian cruisers.

Voro roared a challenge at the five foolish batarians who attacked him. The first to make a move was bisected by one of the sangheili's energy swords. The second had his head cut off by the other, and the third was stomped into the ground by Voro's massive right foot. The last two didn't even try and ran off but were cut down by Nihlus Kryik's shotgun before they could get anywhere.

The turian turned to the sangheili and said, "You know I have to say your skills are impressive. How long does it take to wield a sword like that, much less two at the same time?"

"More time than you have left, turian, and it is an honor earned, not learned," Voro replied as he looked towards the advancing batarians.

The battle was definitely favoring the Council races, the battle in space was wrapping up, and the batarians had little to no armor left, just ground troops and barricades to halt the advances of the Council's powerful war machines, but that didn't stop the cocky batarians from trying to advance against their superior foe.

A squad of batarians armed with standard assault rifles moved past a destroyed Mako tank, trying to get a firing lane on the sangheili and turian. As the first aimed his assault rifle, a massive shimmer formed into a smiling skull clad soldier.

Voro looked over once he heard the screams, just in time to watch Emile slaughter them with his kukri. One was disemboweled, another had his throat slit by a skilled and well aimed slash, the third one had his chest crushed by an armored boot while the fourth's brain was scrambled by the titanium kukri slamming down through his skull.

"Does he have to be so violent?" Nihlus asked, concerned.

"Hate occupies his mind like a virus ravaging a sick man's body, I do not know if he will win that battle, but it is his battle to fight."

"Who does he hate so bad?"

"Himself, let's go, the weaklings are still attacking," Voro told the spectre.

The two asari spectres along with Jondum Bau were holding back a couple squads of batarian troopers, but they couldn't hold forever. The younger asari was holding a barrier whilst simultaneously attempting to pluck soldiers out of the batarian lines for allied gunfire, but the strain was too much as a sniper's round made it through her barrier and passed right through her heart.

"SALI!" the other asari cried.

Bau looked over to the fallen asari spectre, "This is Spectre Bau, requesting backup, Spectre Sali T'Lana is down, repeat, Spectre T'Lana is down!"

"I read you froggy man! Zorro meat me there! Nihlus keep over watch, I'm told we're about to get some unusual backup!"

Jondum moved out of cover to fire his submachine gun at a couple of batarians stupidly standing out in the open. The two batarians fell, but more importantly, the salarian was out long enough to watch two large figures land in the midst of the batarian soldiers.

Screams erupted from behind the cement barriers the batarians were using, not that that was the only thing emerging from the area. Emile must have punted him, or maybe he possessed the upper body strength to do it, but when the body landed in front of Jondum, all he could do was reel back from the grisly sight of a caved in chest cavity and a splattered head.

Finally, both Spartan and sangheili walked around from behind the barricade, both covered in various body fluids, as Nihlus reported a Falcon coming in, "And it's carrying something weird."

Emile, however, immediately recognized what it was, "YES! Oh this is gonna be so much fuckin fun!"

Nihlus watched curiously as Emile ran up and popped the hatch on the backside and crawled in, then he watched in shock as it stood up, pulling up a massive mass accelerator and missile pod with it as it stood over seventeen feet tall.

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!"

The giant mass accelerator on the right side of the walking automaton began spewing forth death. The Cyclops battle tank stepped over the previously unbreechable defenses of the Hegemony command post.

"Get on the horn with every available squad! We're on route to kick some ass!"

A rocket soared towards the Cyclops, but Emile ducked underneath it, turned, and fired his own rocket at the foolish trooper. Behind him, a troop of blue armored ODST's led the way for an entire battalion of System's Alliance marines and Hierarchy Regulars.

"Commander, is that you in there?"

"Cheeks, long time no see… duck."

Ashley ducked as the Cyclops turned at the 'waist' and laid waste to a batarian gun emplacement.

"Commander, I just received an objective from Command!"

"Oh really now, what'd it say?"

"There's a missile battery that's been preventing Falcons from coming in close and dropping troops."

Emile looked around on the Cyclops' heads up display and found the missile battery in question lit up in bright yellow, "Yeah I see it! Here goes nothin!"

The five missile tubes spread out, revealing a sixth launcher that glowed red with gathering power before…

BANG…BOOM!

The tertiary weapon system of the Cyclops, a Cain launcher, was more than enough to destroy the large missile battery's foundation, sending the heavy silos tumbling down the side of the building it was mounted on.

The entire complex that the Batarian Hegemony had chosen for their headquarters on Kirhak looked like a series of castle walls leading towards a tall central spire. In Emile's opinion, it was all a little Medieval, which just made it more awesome.

"Yeah, fucking take that bitch!" Emile yelled as he blew the doors off of their hinges, paving the way for Ashley and all of the troopers following her.

"Ashley! Mike's been hit!"

"Alright, Sam, pull him back, Jason keep up with us, c'mon Goran!" she finished shouting at her only turian squadmate.

Emile was an expert in Cyclops driving, despite only having driven it for the past fifteen minutes, one more bonus of being a Spartan, and forced the tall machine into a 'crouch' which let him follow the soldiers right through the busted door.

Inside the spire was a mess, batarians running as they tried to rig demolition charges to take their enemies down with them. Any and all charges were quickly disarmed or destroyed before they could detonate and the group was on their way to the center of the spire when Emile got a call from Jorge.

"Hey, Punk, there's a stealth frigate powering up in the hangar, the general is trying to escape!"

"I'm on it big man!" Emile promised as he put the Cyclops in a shuffling walk in the hangar's direction.

"KNOCK, KNOCK!"

BOOM!

"WHO'S THERE?" Emile shouted after his missiles blew through the wall separating him from the hangar, "IT'S A BARRAGE OF MISSILES!"

True to his word, another group of missile flew away from the Cyclops and smashed into the frigate's engines, destroying them. Emile brought the Cyclops up to the frigate, and began stomping his way through the hull.

"COME OUT, COME OUT, WHERE EVER YOU ARE!"

Immediately afterwards, a high ranking batarian leaped out of the wreckage and ran for a fighter nearby, hoping that Emile would notice him, mistake.

Emile popped the canopy on the Cyclops, leaned back from the cockpit, and hurled his kukri over a hundred feet in a perfect ark that ended in the batarian's shoulder, knocking him to the ground.

Later, when the Council forces were mopping up the last of the batarian resistance on Kirhak, Voro approached Emile as he sat atop the wreckage of the frigate he had destroyed earlier.

"That throw was never aimed to kill, did you sate your bloodlust born of your self hatred?"

Emile couldn't even glare at the sangheili, just kept his eyes locked on the image of a blonde haired, hazel eyed Noble Six sitting across from him, "Well, aren't you gonna answer your new best friend, _**deserter**_?"

**Well there you go, the first and only battle that I'm going to show you in any amount of detail in the Hegemony/Council war. I hoped you liked it, and I'm sorry if I kind of ended things a little too quickly towards the end there, I just got tired and wanted to post this damn chapter.**

**Any questions or concerns? Tell me what you think about Jorge's first battle as captain of the Serpent's Tongue. What oh what is wrong with Emile? More on that next chapter.**

**Review, don't want to write what you don't want to read.**


	31. Snatch and Grab

**Hey I'm starting to get on top of this shit again, or maybe not, it may be like three weeks till this hits the site for all I know, I haven't even written this chapter yet. Man I need better meds, the spiders on my forearms are starting to itch.**

**But enough about my schizophrenia, I put a poll on my homepage! Yes, and to the fans who thought Kasumi Goto was a lock as Emile's love interest, well that's too freakin bad, a lot of people were appealing to me via private messaging and reviews, so I finally put it to a freakin poll. The choices are Tali, Kasumi, Miranda, Jack, an OC of your creation, or no one at all.**

**Moving on, last chapter's update was a little confusing for two reasons. First, I put the chapter up before it was ready, took it off, and reposted it a few hours later after I had completed it. This caused much confusion amongst you readers, as many saw the update after I had taken chapter 30 down the first time, saw 29 chapters so you didn't look back when chapter 30 was finally up, sorry 'bout that.**

**Second, a lot of people for some reason I don't understand thought that Six at the end of the chapter was there for reals, he wasn't. I put Six there to prove a point about how crazy Emile is becoming. They say write what you know, and seeing, hearing, and feeling things that aren't there is something that I know all too well, plus it was a way to add a little bit of depth to an otherwise shallow story.**

**Finally, ME2 is here! Not Freedom's Progress just yet, but the war with the Batarian Hegemony is reaching its apex as the Council pushes towards the center of Hegemony space. During this time, however, several colonies in the Terminus System's disappear, human colonies (duh). This chapter will mostly be abstract writing.**

Emile looked at the ruins around him. Once a 'proud' batarian city, reduced to rubble courtesy of the Council's superior firepower both on the ground. The Spartan could see a couple of Warthog fast response vehicles strafing one of the dwindling pockets of batarian resistance among the rubble. Emile had half a mind to join them, but was actually exhausted, having fought for more than forty eight hours straight without a break, or an ammo grab.

Emile's usually dark steel armor was stained red with batarian blood that still dripped from the titanium plating. All Spartan's had a small ticker in their helmet, a program that detected when enemy life signs dropped as a direct result of the Spartan it belonged to, and counted them. Currently, Emile's read at over five hundred kills in the two days since he had dropped on this miserable planet. Normally that number would be considered ridiculous, even by Spartan standards, but lately five hundred dead batarians was starting to become a common sight for Emile.

He rarely used his Mattock to get them, or his shotgun for that matter. Rather, the bloodthirsty monster inside Emile demanded close quarter kills, knives, fists, feet, hell- Emile's helmet had been used as a weapon more than once in this war. But nothing ever satisfied his bloodlust anymore, nothing stopped him but exhaustion, and Emile knew it.

"You know you can't escape yourself, right?"

Emile looked over to his right where a bloodied Commander Carter sat atop the remains of a thrift shop, "Go away."

"Where should I go? Someone else's head?" the imagined Spartan replied, "No, I'm sorry Four; this is one war you can't puss out on."

Noble Four sighed. Over the past three weeks Emile had begun hallucinating members of Noble Team, all whom told him the same thing, he had left when humanity needed him, when his attendance was crucial. This universe didn't need him, they didn't even really want him, but here he was, instead of home, where the Covenant was surely choking the life out of humanity.

The Spartan was broken from his thoughts as the roar of an approaching Falcon's engines roared through the remains of the batarian city.

"You know, Four, I really have to admit, you are one hell of a decorator, this place looks way better than it did before."

Emile snorted behind his bloody visor. It was true; this place was a dump when the Council arrived. Women and children starving on the streets, men fighting over scraps of food, and most of the city had power shortages, little to no indoor plumbing, and every building was structurally instable. Yet when the first soldiers' boots hit the ground, every batarian fought back, from the frailest old women to the youngest starving child. They weren't seen as liberators, the Hegemony wouldn't allow that, no, the Council was seen as the evil invaders. It wasn't the Hegemony that took away the food and forced the workers to pull triple shifts, it was the evil Council.

The Falcon's left door slid open and allowed the Spartan to step on before shooting off into orbit. Inside the Falcon, Emile was met with an asari messenger.

"Sir, the Council wishes to speak with you."

"Ooh, she looks nervous, Four. It turns out that not everyone can see what a coward you are."

Emile refused to look at the latest vision, but could see her out of the corner of his eye. It was Kat, helmet off but she still had a hole through her head from where the needle passed through, which meant that her right eye was gone and leaking a fair amount of brain matter.

"I'll call them when I'm on the Normandy," Emile replied calmly.

"Uh… that's a negative sir; they want to talk to you on the Serpent's Tongue via quantum entanglement… sir."

"Quantum what's a what?" Emile replied with a little more heat than he should have as he made the poor asari flinch a little in fear.

"Quantum entanglement, sir, I don't know the specifics, but it's faster than normal communications and it's brand new tech."

Emile leaned back in his seat, satisfied with her answer, and assumed a relaxed manner, more for the asari's sake than his. She bought it, but Emile knew that Jorge never would, he'd have to avoid the larger Spartan, again.

Four could tell that Five knew something was wrong, there was no way Jorge _wouldn't_ think something was wrong. Emile had been avoiding Jorge for weeks now, fairly obviously in some cases, and it had been forcing the older man into some desperate measures to get into contact with the younger one.

Emile had been fairly shocked to find out that Jorge had contacted _Voro_ of all people. It appeared that mutual concern for a friend can push anyone to get over any hatred, or at least set it aside for awhile. The sangheili had filled in Jorge on Emile's condition along with his own personal opinions, and since then Emile caught the huge alien sending a message to Jorge at least once a week, updating Jorge on Emile's status.

The Falcon shuddered slightly as it touched down inside one of the Serpent's Tongue's massive hangars. Emile stepped out of the dropship and was met with the sight of controlled chaos.

Dropships came in and departed with regularity, ferrying supplies and soldiers back and forth between the surface, soldiers ran by, either gearing up for battle on the ground or heading to their bunks for a shower after their battle on the ground. Some of the unluckier soldiers were wheeled by on stretchers on their way to the medical bays while others still lay limp in a body bag. Fortunately, such scenes were few and far between, while the more common sight was of marines hitting on an asari commando, or a turian asking a salarian why the humans were always referring to them as birdmen and frog people.

Just as Emile was halfway across the giant open hangar, a group of pilots ran by, on their way to a group of fighters. The entire squadron looked like it was led by a salarian, but was mostly turian with only two humans, but looked like a cohesive group to the trained eye of the Spartan observing them. Emile's sharp ears picked up some of their conversation, it appeared that the batarians were launching a last ditch wave of fighters to take as many ships with them as they could.

Emile moved further into the ship, walking instead of taking the tram so he could observe the crew and so he could stay in crowded areas where _they_ couldn't talk to him, rather than run the risk of being on an empty tram with only his fragmented psyche to keep him company.

It had been two weeks since Kirhak had fallen, and the crew of the Serpent's Tongue was well conditioned by now. The halls were already showing signs of use, not wear, but the ship was thoroughly coated in fingerprints and footprints. Ever since Kirhak, the Nebula class dreadnaught had scored over two hundred kills with ship mounted weaponry alone, which doesn't include the hundreds of fighters at its disposal, or the six Normandy class frigates that sat in the hangar during slipspace travel.

Even more impressive was the lack of damage on the hull. So far, no mass accelerator round had managed to pierce the kinetic barriers of the massive ship, and only a few strays had ever caught the ship without its barriers up while it was launching waves of fighters or in 'siege mode' and even then, the armor was so thick and so strong that the crew barely registered the strikes.

All in all, this ship was the reason that the batarian's were falling so quickly. Sure the Council probably would have beaten the Hegemony anyway, but not at the rate of one planet every three days, on average, some planets took hours since they were small arms manufacturing plants and little else, while others took a four or five days because they had ship yards in orbit, but no defense the Hegemony could muster was capable of stopping the Serpent's Tongue.

The doors to the bridge slid open, revealing a turian women and man standing over a holographic representation of the batarian colony and the space around it.

"Reports have it that the batarian fighters are launching from this moon, here. The largest one around the gas giant," the male turian said.

"Very well, have fifteen fighters accompany wolf pack Viper to the base and destroy it, orbital bombardment is authorized," the female responded.

The male nodded as he began issuing orders into his earpiece. Emile could make out the letters on his flight armor that said, 'Commander of the Air Group'.

The female turian turned around to regard Emile, "Commander A239, Captain Jorge and the Council are waiting for you in the QEC, right through there."

The Spartan just nodded in reply and walked through the indicated door into a pitch black room with Jorge seemingly standing in a spotlight talking to no one.

"Are you sure it's Cerberus?" Jorge asked the blank wall. Emile would have found this behavior funny if he wasn't experiencing hallucinations regularly.

The smaller Spartan decided to step up next to Jorge, in the weird spotlight, and found out who the larger Spartan was talking to. It almost appeared that the entire QEC room had been replaced with the Council Chambers, and standing before them was the Council itself.

"Ah good, you're here," Anderson greeted Emile.

Jorge turned to the smaller man, "Hey Punk."

"Big man," Emile responded, "Now what is Cerberus up to now?"

Councilor Valern played with his terminal for a second before a hologram of a planet appeared before him, "Two days ago, a human colony in the Terminus Systems went dark. An STG team was sent, but no trace of the colonists was found. The colony itself showed no signs of battle, but all of the security systems had been disabled."

"And you think Cerberus did it?"

Anderson was the one who responded, "You remember Lieutenant Commander Richard Jenkins," Emile nodded, "He has been following leads on Cerberus for the past few months, hunting down terrorist cells, finding and infiltrating Cerberus command posts, and trying to get closer to their leader."

"What does an old crewmember of mine killing terrorists have to do with Cerberus abducting colonists?"

"He has noted that many of the persons used in Cerberus' experiments have been, in fact, colonists from the Terminus Systems."

Emile pondered the meaning for a second, "So you think they stepped up there game from taking individuals to taking an entire colony?"

Sparatus took over for Anderson, "Correct, but more disturbingly is the rate at which they are pulling off the abductions."

"What do you mean?"

"Since the STG team has reported back from their mission, another colony has already gone dark. If they keep this up it won't be long before this spills over into our space."

"So what do you want me to do about it?"

"An STG team working alongside Lieutenant Commander Jenkins has discovered a Cerberus station inside the Terminus Systems. This station is supposedly the current location of Cerberus' second in command Miranda Lawson."

As Sparatus said this, another hologram appeared of the Cerberus agent. Emile supposed that she was considered pretty, probably even beautiful, but the Spartan could see the spark in her eye, even through the hologram. Emile had always been a good judge of character, even if his own character was less than desirable, and could tell the disposition of almost anyone by a simple glance at their eyes. This woman was deceitful, willing to do anything to get her way, loyal to a fault but not unreasonable, and she was ambitious.

"And the Normandy is the only ship that can get past the station's defenses undetected and land a team," Tevos finished the report.

"You want me to bring anyone else, or just me?"

Tevos answered him, "We highly suggest taking along Richard Jenkins, his Lieutenant, James Vega, and a four man STG team. These are all people highly familiar with Cerberus weaponry, tactics, and personnel and are each, highly trained soldiers."

Emile nodded and asked, "Where do I pick em up?"

…

The Normandy slid into slipspace just past the relay in the Serpent Nebula with a few extra passengers.

"Rick, good to see you again," Emile told the younger soldier as they walked through the armory on the way to the comm. room for the mission briefing.

"You too, Commander, say how's Trip?"

"Aw you know, eating up our supply of fresh meat as soon as we buy the stuff."

"Hey is he coming along with us?"

Emile snorted, "Try and stop him. I haven't let him come along the past few times and he's getting antsy."

Jenkins laughed and shook his head while moving over to his spot around the command table. Emile took his place at the head and looked over the assembled troops. The four salarians from the STG all stood next to each other on one side and on the other stood a nine foot tall sangheili in full armor sans the helmet, a six foot two inch tall human in cobalt ODST armor sans the helmet, and finally a six foot five inch (in armor) tall human in Spartan like armor completed with a black and gold helmet that completely concealed his face. To top off the bucket of crazy, at the other end of the table, opposite of Emile, a varren's head stood above the table with a longue pink tongue hanging out of the left side of its mouth.

"Well, since Trip is obviously the one in charge here, what is your plan, boy?" Emile asked playfully.

Trip just barked once in response, to which both Jenkins and Vega had something to say about.

"What is he? A tactical genius?" Jenkins joked.

"I certainly don't need to hear anymore, this is the guy in charge!" Vega played along.

"Alright simmer down, his idea wasn't _that_ good!" Emile joked, _Man it's good to have a team again._

One of the salarians spoke up then, "I don't understand, all it did was bark. How did you understand what it was saying?"

"We don't it was a joke!" Vega exclaimed, "Besides, Trip's an animal, he can't understand what we're saying, despite how cute he is!" Vega finished by directing his last statement at the varren himself, who growled playfully and wagged his tail, slapping the nearest salarian repeatedly.

"Okay people, let's get down to business, this," Emile said as he brought up a holographic representation of their intended target, "is Lazarus Station."

"Our intended target is Miranda Lawson, we need her alive. Want to take over from here Rick?"

"Sure thing, Commander," Jenkins replied, "We believe that she'll be close to the center of the station, near a new medical program that is supposed to bring people back from the dead."

One salarian asked, "How do you know this?"

"Data collected by myself and Mr. Vega here on operations in the past. Supposedly, the purpose is to bring back soldiers who were so valuable that Cerberus would supposedly be lost without them."

"Personally I think this is just a mad man's bid at immortality but that isn't why we're here," Jenkins continued, "The Normandy can get us close, but with the kinetic barriers surrounding the station, not even Joker can get us all the way, which is where Cortez comes in."

Almost as if speaking his name summoned the man, Steve Cortez walked in right behind Emile, "Sorry bout that everybody, I was just watching a vid mail my husband sent me."

"S'all right Esteban, Loco here was just about to explain your role in all of this, unfortunately," Vega finished under his breath, he really didn't like flying with Cortez at the controls.

"Ooh, I'm always looking for my next near death experience!"

"Sorry Cortez, just a simple drop off and pick up this time," Jenkins informed the flyboy, much to Cortez's disappointment and Vega's silent celebration.

"Cortez will fly a captured Cerberus UT-47 Kodiak shuttle to the station. Yes, what is your question?"

The salarian asking put his hand down and said, "Where are we going to get a Cerberus shuttle?"

"We have determined the schedule for shuttles coming and going from Lazarus Station, and the Normandy will ambush a shuttle coming through the relay, we get on, and from there it will be a standard snatch and grab op."

Emile took over, "All right, we split into two teams. I'll take the salarians and we'll make a bunch of noise, get everyone's attention. Rick, I want you and Vega to move in on Ms. Lawson, and Zorro," the Spartan said, grabbing the huge sangheili's attention, "I want you to go and disrupt the station. Kinetic barriers, computer mainframes, defensive systems, lighting, if you can disrupt it, do it, we need them to think that there are four teams moving around, not just eight dudes and a dog."

"We get there in seventeen hours since this station is pretty deep in the Terminus Systems. Get some sleep, some food, some sexual release, I don't care what you do to relax, just relax. Dismissed."

Emile left the comm. room to head up to his room, Trip hot on his heels. When he reached his spacious quarters, the Spartan showered, and climbed into bed where darkness claimed him, and brought him torment.

Dreams of UNSC fleets being smashed by massive Covenant ships, cities being glassed by powerful cruisers in orbit, Earth, just a burning husk as the last human is brought before a Prophet, and beheaded.

…

Seventeen hours after Emile had briefed his team on the mission, the same team sat in the cramped hold of a UT-47 Kodiak shuttle on their way into a hangar bay inside Lazarus Station.

"Man, why didn't we get two shuttles," Vega moaned. His complaints weren't without merit. Had Emile and Voro been of similar size to their compatriots, then the shuttle wouldn't be nearly as cramped as it was. Both Spartan and sangheili were forced to crouch just to fit inside the tiny shuttle, and Voro's incredibly long arms and legs weren't making things any easier for the other occupants.

"It's all right Vega, we'll be in there soon enough, right Cortez?" Jenkins called up to the pilot.

"Landing now actually, surprise!" the slightly unbalanced flyboy responded.

"Son of a-," Vega cried out as the Kodiak's hatch popped open to a packed shuttle bay.

"Don't waste time, OPEN FIRE, OPEN FIRE!" Emile cried as he shouldered his Mattock and took the head clean off one Cerberus trooper, "Don't waste ammo on civvies! Armed personnel only!"

"Copy that!" Jenkins yelled as his Storm rifle burned through the chest of another Cerberus trooper.

The group split, with Emile and the salarians going loud and slow, letting Jenkins, Vega, and Voro to slip away. Emile led the salarians down the direct route, while Jenkins and Vega were moving through service hallways and maintenance through ways that were hardly populated. Voro, in the meantime, was speeding through dozens of troops on his way to the station's defense controls, to the computer mainframe, and to the life support, not to deactivate it, but to shut down the ultra violet lights throughout the station, leaving only emergency lights.

Emile ducked under a poorly thought out shot by a sniper who was standing only feet from him. Shooting for the head in such close quarters against such an inexplicable _fast_ opponent such as Emile was stupid at best, and suicidal most times, like right now.

The Spartan silenced the Cerberus trooper's screams with a quick jab to the throat that also happened to decapitate him, _oops._

BOOM! Another trooper flew back into the metal walls of the station after Emile's shotgun had gotten rid of most of his chest. The Spartan wasted no time as he brought his right fist swinging across his body from left to right and snapped the neck of another trooper.

Gunfire pinged off of his thick armor, his shields had gone down quite a while ago, but the super soldier wasn't worried, the thick armor plates of his MJOLNIR could take more of a beating than standard shredder rounds could muster.

_OUCH!_ Tungsten rounds, however, could get through after a couple of shots. Emile ducked back down into cover and let his salarian teammates, at least the ones still alive, take over while he recharged his shields.

Only two of the amphibious aliens were left, the other two had fallen to the sniper Emile had just killed, leaving Emile's group at just three people, "AHHH!" and one varren.

Trip drug a Cerberus heavy trooper to the ground and behind cover so he could finish him off. The varren's armor plating he wore on his back was stained red with blood, just like his vicious tusks, which painted quite the disturbing image for the other Cerberus troopers.

Just as Emile's shields recharged, another salarian failed to take cover in time and a burst from a standard Avenger assault rifle pierced his chest. Emile wasn't taking the losses well, sure they weren't as well trained or naturally talented as his last crew, but they were still under his care damnit!

"TAKE THIS!" Emile roared as he leapt over his cover and plowed a fist through a LOKI mech's head.

The Spartan charged, using the mech as a 'human' shield, firing his shotgun into the group of troopers and mechs.

BOOM!...BOOM!...BOOM!

Due to the nature of the shotgun, the pellets were actually able to kill more than one enemy per shot as the rounds would simply shred through one target, and spread out to clip two more on its way out.

As Emile finished off the last of the defensive force, Trip began sniffing and scratching at a large ventilation duct, "What is it, Trip?"

The varren whined in response and continued scratching at the grate before growling, backing up, and ramming through.

"TRIP?"

Trip barked from within the ventilation duct before running down the spacious crawl space.

"Should we go after him?" the salarian asked.

"Nah, Trip has good instincts, I bet this'll play a part in what's to come, now let's go!"

While Emile and the STG agent were talking, one not quite dead Cerberus trooper had grabbed a sniper rifle out of his dead comrade's hands, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

CRACK!

The salarian slumped to the floor with a hole in his head, and despite the green blood covering Emile's visor, all he saw was red, "RAAAAAAAAAGH!"

The beast was unleashed.

…

"Jacob, hurry, we're out of time!" Miranda shouted at her compatriot.

Thirty minutes ago, every alarm the base had to offer began blaring their warnings over the comm. channels and PA system. Miranda had seen what the emergency was, simply eight intruders, and had assumed that the security detail would take care of them.

But when she began getting reports of squad after squad being decimated, she had finally taken a look for herself. Two of the intruders she recognized as Jenkins and Vega, but the giant that was leading the salarians was what had her worried the most.

She had been watching the security footage when the final salarian had been killed, she had seen what it did to him, and she was frightened. The man fought like a monster, punching, kicking, stabbing, and left nothing but bloody body parts in his wake. Troopers weren't even stopping to fight him anymore, just running at the sight of the blood thirsty beast, and Miranda couldn't blame them.

Right now, she and Jacob were packing up the last of their research data and evacuating, it appeared that someone had gotten into all of the station's systems and were systematically shutting them down to provide the advantage to the invaders, meaning it was only a matter of time before they just shut down life support to the whole station, or overloaded the reactors once they claimed their prize.

Miranda was no fool, she knew they were after her; she could potentially lead them to the Illusive Man. She wasn't going to let them take her though, "Jacob, let's go!"

"Okay, we're good! Hey, where's Wilson?" the broad soldier asked.

"He's prepping a shuttle now let's- OOPH!"

Miranda was unable to finish her sentence as a seven foot form crashed through the steel door and collided with the wall on the other side of the room. A figure shook the debris off of himself, but the Cerberus agent's already knew who he was.

"Though the door, NOW!" Miranda yelled as the two leaped through the open door behind them and activated the thicker, sturdier blast doors on their way out. Both stopped and stared at the door, surely he couldn't get through that, could he?

In answer, a dent formed out and an animalistic scream emanated from the other side of the twelve inches of solid steel composite.

"Jacob let's go!"

"Right."

…

Emile roared as his fist struck the blast shield, causing a huge dent that bowed deeply outwards. Blood dripped from his armor, some of it still from the salarian that had trusted him with his life, the rest was acquired in his quest for revenge.

"Boy, I know that I never hated aliens, but I never felt bad when one died!"

_Shut up, Jun!_ Emile thought as his mind fell out of the haze it had been in for the past five minutes.

"I mean, you really have gone soft," the visage of Jun shook his head, "Pathetic."

"I said SHUT UP JUN!" Emile roared as he spun around.

"Commander?" a voice from just beyond the doorway he had crashed through.

Jenkins and Vega jogged through the doorway, "Who were you talking too?"

"Don't worry about it, Rick," Emile assured, "The target is moving to the hangar, we'll have to find an alternate route!"

Jenkins wasn't too sure about Emile's state of mind, especially considering the still wet blood covering him, but if their objective was on the move, then there was no time for bickering, "Voro, you got a reading on the target?"

"Affirmative, human, she is heading to one of the shuttle bays, I will forward the coordinates to you and meet you and the Spartan there."

…

Miranda and Jacob ran towards the running Kodiak shuttle, hoping that Emile and his friends were far behind.

"Come on, come on!" Jacob shouted as he sprinted past Miranda.

_Goddamn heels! Why do I wear these things?_ The operative thought as she tried to catch up with Jacob.

Suddenly gunfire broke out; causing both agents to look back, what they saw surprised them.

A nine foot tall reptilian monster wielding blades of light was slashing through troops faster than the troops could attack. Any and all gunfire simply disappeared into an incredibly powerful plasma shield that didn't look like it was going to break anytime soon.

Pausing to look at the sangheili proved to be a mistake as a trooper flew through a doorway before the dreaded bloodthirsty monster roared through the doorway and joined the fight.

"Jacob, in that shuttle, NOW!" Miranda yelled.

Jacob grabbed the door handle on the Kodiak and threw it open…

And Wilson's body fell out of the shuttle before a giant scaly monster crashed into his chest and slammed his head against the floor, stunning the soldier. Jacob was torn from his hazy state, however, when Miranda screamed in pain.

The soldier spun around onto his hands and knees to see a varren with Miranda in its mouth. One tusk was protruding slightly through her thin belly while the other was undoubtedly deep inside one of her cheeks, not the ones on her face either.

Jacob's biotics flared to life but the varren responded by putting one clawed paw on Miranda's head and shook his head slightly, causing her to gasp in severe pain. The message was clear, _try it, I dare you._

Jacob let his biotics die and looked over to see the rest of the troopers in the shuttle bay had surrendered. The biotic was surprised to see that the Spartan had accepted their surrender, judging from what he had seen through the cameras, he had figured the armored titan for a merciless monster.

The Spartan was still dripping with blood as he walked over to the three, "I see you've gone and done our job for us, Trip. Good boy!"

The varren wagged his tail but kept his jaws clenched around Miranda Lawson.

"Let her go, Trip, we do need her alive," the bloody Spartan said.

Trip let go of Miranda as gently as possible, seemingly capable of understanding that the better shape Miranda was in the better. Emile leaned down to check on the operatives wounds. She would be fine, no doubt, though she will most likely have a few scars where Trip's teeth had punctured her skin, at least the tusks, anyway.

…

"I'm telling you, Cerberus is not behind the abductions!" Jacob said, tired of repeating himself.

"Then explain why your operatives are always seen among the deserted colonies after the abductions?" Emile asked patiently.

"Look, we want to find out what's going on just as much as you do!"

Emile could sense no lying, but Jacob struck him as an extremely loyal, yet extremely moral man. It was possible that to ensure his continuing loyalty, Miranda and this 'Illusive Man' had lied to him about the abductions.

"Okay, what do you know about them, then?"

"Not much," Jacob admitted, "Probably the same as you. Colony's abandoned, defensive systems are down, and there are no signs of battle."

"That seems fall in with our observations," Emile admitted.

"Oh my God! Just torture this Innie already!" Thom said from his position next to Jacob at the briefing table.

"Shut up, you're not real," Emile whispered.

"What?"

"Nothing, Mr. Taylor, Miranda should be out of the medbay by now. What say you and I go pay her a visit?"

"Hm," he sighed, "fine."

…

Miranda hissed as a silver haired woman applied a generous amount of medigel to her open wound.

"Oh don't be such a baby," the doctor, Chakwas, said, "You should consider yourself lucky that Trip didn't want to kill you! I'm still amazed sometimes by that animal's intuition."

"You honestly believe it made a conscious decision to save me?"

"You think he didn't?" she replied, "His left tusk, the one that went through your belly, missed any organs that could have been irreversibly damaged _and_ he didn't immediately shake you around like a ragdoll once you were in his mouth."

Miranda conceded the point just as the door to the medbay opened and Jacob and an unidentified giant of a man walked in. It didn't take a superior intellect to put two and two together, the huge man hulking over Jacob was obviously the famous Commander Emile, and the guy who tore through Cerberus soldiers with his bare hands.

"How you feeling, Miranda?" Jacob asked.

"Well enough I suppose," Miranda replied before addressing Emile, "Now that you've captured me, what are you going to do with me? I don't know where the Illusive Man is."

"I _was_ going to torture you into revealing which colony Cerberus was going to attack next, but it has come to my attention that you aren't behind the attacks."

Miranda snorted, "Of course we're not! We're a pro-human organization, why would we attack human colonies?"

Emile's face darkened, "Of course, I could just torture you anyway. Or maybe he could do it."

Miranda was wondering why he was pointing behind himself when the door opened and a much bigger figure ducked into the medical bay.

"I could do what, Spartan?" it said with a deep, guttural voice.

"Ms. Lawson was just making a fuss, so I threatened to have you spank her."

"Why would I-,"

"It was a turn of phrase! Don't worry about it," Emile said, exasperatedly, "Plus you're ruining the whole 'giant scary people' vibe!"

"Anyway, since Jacob appears to be loyal to a fault, I'm guessing you don't tell him everything you know, and I would like to know what _you_ know."

Miranda frowned, she had received recent orders from the Illusive Man to check out Freedom's Progress, as it was likely the next target, but should she tell the Commander?

Emile leaned in close to her, "I can see that your contemplating not telling me something," he leaned in just a little closer and whispered, "that would be a mistake."

"Alright."

**Okay, that's a wrap people! As you can see, Freedom's Progress next chapter as well as the Illusive Man's first appearance. You may have noticed the page breaks, pretty fancy huh? I first realized the need for them when I read one of my chapters for errors online and found the POV change very hard to follow. If you like them, then the rest of the chapters will be updated with them, even the ones already posted.**

**Tell me what you think about Emile's continued mental problems, too heavy? Too light? Just right? GET OUT OF MY HOUSE GOLDILOCKS! **

**Please review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	32. Two YMIR's, One Spartan

**Rather incredible sequence of events on this Easter Sunday. Whilst regarding the poll I had put up for Emile's romance, I noticed that Kasumi Goto was the favorite by about three votes. Ready to pack it in and get ready to write a Kasumi romance, I clicked refresh and Tali had jumped up two votes. I paused, considering this new piece of information with the sliver of hope that I might get to write the Tali romance I had been hoping for, I waited. For two hours I waited, and, well, Tali fans you did well, another two votes and I, in all of my biased glory, ended the poll with Tali in a tie with Kasumi with the tiebreaker going to me, you know who I picked.**

**I would like to say I'm sorry to everyone out there who voted for someone else and didn't get there way, trust me, I know what that's like, after all, I'm a Republican. To the Kasumi Goto fans who felt like they got cheated, I am also sorry, but the tiebreaker does go to the author.**

**Getting on to this chapter, Freedom's Progress, Emile takes Miranda and Jacob down to the surface, fights some robots, meets up with Tali, and finds a trippin quarian, plus a verbal confrontation with the Illusive Man.**

Emile sat in a Falcon class dropship across from a very cross Miranda Lawson and a smiling Jacob Taylor. For the past hour on the Normandy, Miranda had been quizzing Emile on what he knew about Cerberus, and his answers had been frustratingly revealing. It appeared that the Alliance knew just about everything about Cerberus except any information regarding their leader.

There wasn't only information regarding Cerberus that the Alliance had been digging up, but information on their operatives as well, including Miranda Lawson. The femme fatale was grateful that most of her history was still a secret, as were a number of personal secrets such as her sister, Oriana's location, but was appalled that Emile was familiar with her troubles with her father, Henry Lawson.

Much to Miranda's frustration, Jacob found the whole situation hilarious, especially how easily Emile disarmed Miranda's arguments and turned them against her. Even more frustrating was how well the two got along. When Miranda had approached Emile to begin her investigation, she had found the two, with the insufferable pilot Joker, watching March Madness and checking their brackets!

"Dude, Terra Nova State just got into the Elite Eight!" Jacob suddenly said, looking up from his omnitool.

"Your kidding?! They were down twenty at the half against the best defensive team in the Sol system!" Emile responded as he also immediately turned to his omnitool, causing Miranda to sigh.

Another voice suddenly rang out in the crew bay of the Falcon, "Wooohooo! Guess who picked TNS to win!"

"Fuck you Joker!" Emile shouted back.

Miranda cut off Joker's cackling, "Can we please get back to the issue? We are about to land on a human colony that has its occupants abducted by an alien force!"

Emile's skulled visor just stared at the Cerberus agent before saying, "Exactly, it's a goddamn graveyard! Maybe there's a couple of mechs active but for the most part this is a simple investigation, our weapons are a joke!"

"And what if we find an entire army waiting for us?"

"Please, I know you remember the security footage from Lazarus Station, if there is an army, I'll rip through it with my bare hands."

Miranda frowned and Jacob immediately stopped smiling as he remembered the bloody monster that had ripped so many people apart that had killed without mercy and fed on the anguish of the people under his merciless care. It was easy to forget that monster when faced with the man underneath the armor, the good natured, if a little imbalanced, man.

"We're landing now guys!"

"Thanks Joker!" Emile called up to the cockpit, "and thanks for the personal drop off, very cool of you, oh! And uh, drop dead for TNSU!"

"Sure thing, Commander, see you back on the Normandy!"

Emile stepped off of the Falcon behind Jacob and Miranda and took in the environment. Everything was dreary, steel prefab homes, concrete foundations, and a few specks of green where the colonists had tried to bring a little color to the grey environment. Emile's sharp eyes were able to pick out several important details, or lack there of.

First of all, there was the significant lack of battle scars. The Spartan knew to expect this, but to look around, knowing that the colonists had been forcibly removed and to not see any sign of resistance was eerie for the aggressive super soldier.

The second thing was the lack of noise. The Spartan's augmented eyes could pick out bird nests, rat droppings, even a litter box through one of the windows. So where were the animals?

The Spartan shouldered his shotgun as he continued to regard his surroundings. The Cerberus operatives noticed.

"I thought you said there was nothing down here," Miranda smirked at his behavior.

"That was before I saw the empty bird nests."

Jacob frowned, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It's night here, why aren't the birds roosting?"

Miranda rolled her eyes, "Maybe they were killed when the colonist's were abducted."

Emile raised his shotgun in the air and fired…

BOOM!

Hundreds of urban pigeons flew out of the holes in the concrete foundations at the ear splitting boom. Rats burst from their hovels and Emile even saw a dog running for the edge of the colony.

"It would appear that they were hiding from something," Emile said, more to himself than anyone.

"Hiding from what?"

The Spartan turned to regard Jacob, "I don't know, keep your guard up."

The trio moved into the first prefab home and found half eaten dinners and the faucet was still running. Again, there was no sign of any struggle, as if the colonists had just gotten up and left in the middle of dinner. Emile was wracking his mind to find what could have gotten the colonist's to do this. Gas? No, that would have left residue, poison in the water? Again, there would have been evidence left behind.

"Well they didn't glass this place, unlike Reach, right Four?"

Emile closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to look at the ghostly image of Thom and whispered, "Shut up."

"What?" Miranda asked as she looked up from a piece of scrap metal.

"Nothin, let's keep moving towards the security station, if there's any security footage left, it'll be there."

"Right," Miranda agreed, but Emile caught the hesitation in her voice.

The Spartan and two Cerberus operatives moved up to a huge steel door that separated them from the rest of the colony.

"Looks like it's been put in lockdown, quite recently too, someone's alive," Miranda concluded.

Emile just nodded with the assessment as he moved up to the door. It would only take a few minutes to hack the door open, but then again, the Spartan was never known for his patience. He put his fingers in the vertical seem of the door and heaved, causing the hydraulics to groan as they fought to keep the door shut before succumbing to the Spartan's brute force.

Emile put a hand on the inside of the broad steel door and pushed the doors to the extent of his arms' reach. When he finally had the door open as far as he could get it, he looked up, "Oh FUCK ME!"

A concussion blast loaded with an EMP hit his chest, causing him to stagger back, shields down, and allowing the doors to start to close again. The Spartan regained his position holding the door open and yelled, "Jacob, Miranda, let's GO!"

Standard rounds pinged off the titanium plates of his armor as the two Cerberus operatives ducked under his arms and began firing at their adversary. Said adversary was, in fact, the colony's security mechs, most armed with standard submachine guns, but others armed with old Avenger assault rifles and one wielded a Viper sniper rifle, which as Emile soon found out was loaded with a tungsten ammo block, meaning it was capable of punching through the Spartan's thick armor.

After Emile had let the operatives through, he scanned the enemy as he dove for cover. Ten LOKI mechs, normally not a problem, but the charging dog-like FENRIS mechs, taking cover was going to be much more difficult. Emile could charge out and easily destroy the FENRIS mechs, but that would leave him exposed to the sniper who had already landed a shot in his left shoulder.

"Miranda, pull those FENRIS mechs off the ground, Jacob shred em to pieces!" Emile barked.

While the two operatives quickly jumped to his orders, the super soldier whipped his modified Mattock rifle over his left shoulder and sighted the sniper. The good thing about fighting mechs is that despite their incredible accuracy, they were too stupid to go for cover, meaning the sniper was simply standing still, stupidly out in the open, leaving it open for a one millimeter lead round to punch through its head.

Emile shifted his aim for the two LOKI mechs that were positioned across a gap and stood behind chest high barricades. While this may make them more difficult targets for a regular soldier, the Spartan easily picked them off with two shots.

Miranda, in the meantime, had followed Emile's orders to the letter, biotically pulling the three charging FENRIS mechs off the ground, leaving them easy targets for Jacob's armor piercing Scimitar shotgun. Three shots, and three shredded mechs fell to the ground.

The two operatives turned to see Emile picking off targets from afar, "What are you lookin at me for? There are four mechs right there!"

"Jacob, grab the right one, I'll grab the left," Miranda yelled over the constant cracking noise of Emile's Mattock and the high speed snapping of the mech's submachine guns.

Jacob seemed to know what she had in mind, and the two LOKI mechs on the outside of the four 'man' group suddenly flew into each other at incredible velocities, shattering their lightly armored chassis and crushing the electronics within.

Miranda raised her Predator pistol to finish of the other two, but before she could fire two cracks of Emile's rifle and their heads exploded. Miranda whirled around to glare at the Spartan, who just replied, "Hey, you gotta be quicker than that."

The femme fatale huffed at the Spartan but said nothing when he walked by her and into the prefab house past the ruined mechs. Inside another LOKI rose from a sitting position but found a fist colliding with its head before it could actually raise a weapon.

Jacob looked down at the ruined LOKI, "Why would the mechs attack us?"

Emile chuckled, causing both Cerberus operatives to look at him in question, "Isn't it obvious? That door was put into lockdown recently, the mechs are attacking us, the way they ambushed us?"

Both of the other humans just looked on curiously, causing Emile to sigh, "Kids these days. There's a traumatized survivor running around trying to use the once disabled mechanical security system to protect himself in case the abductors come back."

"There have never been any survivors at any of the other colonies," Miranda pointed out.

"There has never been an alien at any of the other colonies," Emile rebutted.

Both Jacob and Miranda looked at him in shock, to which Emile sighed yet again, "Did neither of you check the list of colonists?"

Jacob shook his head outright while Miranda tried not to look embarrassed that she hadn't fully prepared for the mission.

"There's a quarian here on his Pilgrimage," Emile revealed, "Veetor, or something like that, mechanical and programming genius, if a little off his rocker. I'm guessing whoever abducted these colonists didn't find Veetor, and didn't care about finding Veetor, but Veetor is most likely traumatized."

"Imagine, being the only one left after a bunch of undesirables come down and take all of your friends, and leaving you with a bunch of unused and undamaged mechs. So, knowing that they've never left survivors before, you assume they'll be back for you, but this time you'll have an army!"

"So you're saying this Veetor witnessed the attack," Emile just nodded, "Then we need to find out what that quarian knows."

"You're not going to interrogate him, Miranda. Like Emile said, the poor kid's probably traumatized," Jacob argued.

Miranda scoffed, "I never said 'interrogate'; you did."

"Shhhhh!" Emile said suddenly. The Spartan exited the house and looked across a small cement yard and at the other prefab shelter that would lead them further into the colony and towards their objective.

"What is it, Commander?" Jacob said. Miranda looked over at the other operative questioningly, _since when was he _our_ commanding officer?_

"Voices," Emile said quietly.

"Yeah cause you never hear anything that isn't there, eh Four?" the so very real visage of Noble Two jibed.

"I can't make out what their saying," Emile said, very blatantly ignoring the ghastly image of the mortally wounded Noble Two, "But I don't think we're the only ones checking this colony for survivors."

"The abductors?" Miranda asked as she readied her Predator pistol.

"Not unless their quarians, these people are speaking in Keelish," Emile replied as he silently moved to the door.

"You turned off your translator?" Jacob asked with incredulity.

Emile smirked behind his visor, "I couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but maybe I could make out what language they're speaking, thus, the deactivated translator."

"Who are you? Batman?"

"Please, the Question is a much better detective!" Emile argued, "And SHHHH!"

Emile stood next to the door, silently as he shoed Miranda and Jacob back. The Spartan slammed his kukri into the circular center lock on the small door, disabling the lock and by twisting the knife, drawing the deadbolts back into the lock before throwing the door open and bringing his shotgun to bare.

…

Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Rayya was having a miserable day. First, she had been sent to Freedom's Progress to rescue a young quarian who was in trouble, but then her father, Rael'Zorah had found it rather fitting to have her go with Prazza and his boneheaded squad. Second, Veetor had programmed every single mech in this homeworld damned colony to attack anything that moved.

And now, Prazza was arguing every decision Tali made, as if he didn't trust her to have the squad's best interests at heart. Every time she gave an order, Prazza made sure he could disobey it, and did everything in his power to undermine her authority.

As Tali was laying out her plan on how to get to Veetor, the circular lock behind her shot out sparks as the edge of a knife stuck out the end. Tali could hear the mechanical deadbolts disengage as the knife twisted and watched as the heavy door was thrown open before a familiar hulking figure filled the doorway.

…

The first quarian Emile encountered attempted to charge him, foolish mistake. The Spartan ripped the assault rifle from the male quarian's hands and pushed his open left palm into the diminutive alien's chest, knocking the breath out of him.

Emile fully stepped through the door as he dropped the Avenger assault rifle and stomped on it, killing the rifle. The next quarian to rush him didn't receive quite a hostile response, though that may have been because this particular quarian threw her arms around him and cried out, "Emile!"

"Q-ball?" Emile asked in shock as the small quarian effectively disarmed him with a simple hug.

"No, it's her… oh Keelah, what did you and Kaidan call it? Evil twin?"

"Only one person uses human idioms so ineffectively," Emile said, "How you doin Q-ball?"

Tali backed away from the Spartan, and before answering him barked an order at the quarian he had thrown to the ground, "Get up Prazza, if Emile had meant to hurt you, you'd be dead."

"Man, you grew to be a heartless bitch, huh?"

Emile winced as Tali appeared to be hurt by his statement, sending him backpedaling in a way he had never done so before, "Uh, not that you're nearly as cold as me. It's, uh, just an observation that you don't care for excuses."

Emile sighed with internal relief as Tali's eyes lost their hurt look and resumed being happy. Unfortunately, this did not go unnoticed by his subconscious.

A bloody Commander Carter walked around Tali, "What is she to you, Four? Don't tell me that you could find this _thing_ attractive, I'd like to keep some respect for you."

"What are you doing here, Emile? I didn't know spectres were allowed in the Terminus Systems," Tali asked.

"Investigating the disappearances of the human colonies, and as far as the Council's concerned, I'm on my own."

"So you've gone rogue?" Tali asked.

"Nah, nothin so droll," Emile said with an odd mixture of slang and proper English, "I've been ordered to investigate these disappearances, but as far as resources go, I'm on my own, meaning I have to work with undesirables, like these two."

Tali looked over at the Cerberus operatives, surprisingly calmly considering they were responsible for a breach in the Migrant Fleet's security, though that may be because Emile was in charge, "Cerberus? Undesirables, indeed."

Emile held up a hand, forestalling any argument Miranda may have made on Cerberus' behalf, and asked, "So I'm assuming you're here for Veetor?"

Tali frowned behind her visor, "How did you know?"

"Well, you're quarians, he's the only other quarian on this planet, and as far as we know, he's also the only other person on this planet other than the people in this room."

Tali put her hands on her hips, "You know, you don't have to sound so condescending when you use simple logic."

Jacob decided to pitch in, "He's been doing it all day."

Tali looked at the Cerberus operative with obvious disdain, but didn't throw her insult at Jacob, but rather at Emile, "He's a jerk like that."

Emile faked feeling pain in his heart by putting his right hand over it, "Why Miss Zorah, I had no idea you were so cruel!"

"I'm told I'm a… what was it? Ah! A cruel mistress," Tali joked back.

At this point Miranda stepped up, "If you two are just going to flirt, perhaps the rest of us can just leave you here and move on with the mission."

Emile and Tali looked at Miranda then to the rest of the people present, the two male quarians were trying not to look at the two of them while the female quarian was giving Tali a thumbs up and Jacob was just staring off into space.

"Uh, right," Emile stuttered, "We should get moving, what's the layout of the colony look like?"

Tali jumped at the chance to get out of the awkward situation, "Um, we got a map right here, I was pointing out several different paths we could take, all of which my second in command thinks are stupid."

Emile looked them over, "It all depends on where Veetor has the mechs, hold on a sec."

The Spartan looked over towards where his HUD was telling him the security station was and activated his 'X-ray' vision. An orange pulse appeared on his HUD, expanding outward but visible to his eyes only as it displayed a three dimensional map of the surrounding area as clear blue walls and buildings with any enemy IFF's detected by either the Normandy or his armor's radio were displayed as bright orange figures.

"Looks like there are two routes that are open, both are patrolled by mechs but not heavily," Emile said while pointing out the routes on the map.

Tali looked at them, both of them were routes she had picked but Prazza had dismissed as tactical suicide, "Split up?"

"Agreed, but be warned, there is a YMIR in this colony, do not engage without me."

Prazza scoffed, "Now we're taking orders from Cerberus?"

Emile turned to the quarian, standing a full foot and a half taller than the short quarian; he leaned forward and said, "No, you're following the orders of your superior officer, Tali'Zorah. If you have a problem with that, I can put you through a battlefield trial. You know what the only punishment we have for those? Execution, so shut up, take this rifle," Emile shoved his Mattock into the quarian's hands, "and do your duty."

Tali looked at Prazza cowering before Emile and sighed, "Prazza, marines, let's go!"

…

Tali'Zorah looked back at Prazza who was trying to figure out the rifle and sighed. She remembered when she used to be incredibly intimidated by Emile, such as the first time she ever saw him. That skull was a shock value for sure, especially since she didn't know that other species had skulls like the quarians. But as she had traveled with him, he had started out as extremely cold to her, but warmed up to her and, quite honestly, she held deeper feelings for him than friendship.

It had started just after she and the others had learned the truth behind Emile. Learning about everything he had gone through, and that he was still fighting even though he had no real stake in this universe or its humanity, especially how he was willing to fight with members of different species. Plus, he was just such a _man_. Everything about him screamed alpha male and even though Tali knew that shouldn't be appealing to a civilized person, but she couldn't help it.

Not to mention the sheer physical perfection, Keelah! That man's body! Tali knew that she shouldn't be too impressed just because of his body but if she could just have his body, Tali would probably be happy with that. Not that sexual attraction was the base for her affection, in fact it was the fact he was a sweetheart, even if only she could see it. Anyone else would have killed Trip as soon as they'd found him, but Emile couldn't do it. He could argue about how it was just a logistical measure and that Trip had turned out to be a valuable teammate, but Tali knew it was because Emile just couldn't kill something so innocent.

Still, most people could only see the brash, arrogant, aggressive man that Emile presented to the public. Tali sighed again as she and her three quarian marines moved through the prefab shelters.

"Say Tali," Shelki, one of the female marines with Tali, whispered over a private comm. line, "You never told me your old Captain was a fine piece of man."

Tali looked over at Shelki, furiously blushing behind her helmet, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Please, that armor was skin tight in all the right places, giving a great view of his… _assets._"

"Shelki, get back to work," Tali ordered.

The female marine grumbled a bit, something about Tali being jealous, but got back to looking out for mechs. The four quarians were moving through an open space between two prefab homes when Tali spotted movement in the dark skies.

"Emile, looks like there are several drones headed your way," Tali warned.

"Yeah thanks Q-ball, they're already here!"

"Captain," Prazza called, _Keelah; Emile really scared him!_

"What is it Prazza?"

"I think we found where Veetor is, but…"

"But?" Tali asked, curious as to what could halt the aggressive marine.

"We have two YMIR mechs guarding the station!" Shelki whispered furiously.

Tali looked, and sure enough there were two of the fifteen foot tall, five ton machines standing on either side of the security station looking over the cement courtyard. The quarians had snuck into a prefab home to the right of the courtyard and were looking out at the uncomfortably close YMIR mechs.

Prazza looked them over, "If we stay in cover, fire from a distance and make good use of Talak's rocket launcher, I think we can take them out!"

Tali considered what Prazza had to say, he was technically right, they could take them down, but it would be high risk, and going against Emile's orders.

"Prazza, wait until Emile gets here, there's no reason for us to risk our lives unnecessarily!"

Prazza's eyes glared at Tali, but he did stay put. _Okay, Emile _really_ scared him._ Tali backed away from the opening, so she could radio the Spartan, "Emile, there are two YMIR mechs between us and Veetor!"

The only answer she received was silence, "Emile, Commander? Emile are you there?!"

Tali looked up to the three quarian marines with her, "He's not answering, looks like…"

She never got to finish her sentence as the sound of metal crashing into metal filled the prefab shelter.

…

Emile crashed into the first YMIR mech at forty miles an hour, completely destroying the mech's armored chest, but even that wasn't enough to take down the behemoth. The YMIR spun its torso and smacked the Spartan away with its left arm.

Emile looked up and saw the barrel in the YMIR's right hand start spinning, giving the super soldier just enough time to leap out of the way as the giant machine's mini-gun began vomiting death. Three millimeter tungsten rounds buried themselves over three feet deep into the thick concrete slab, had Emile been there instead, there most likely would only have been a bloodstain against the cement.

The Spartan kept ahead of the first YMIR's line of fire, while dodging a missile from the second before leaping onto the damaged mech's back and grabbing hold of the machine's head. Emile's injured left shoulder protested against it, but the Spartan heaved, slowly prying the YIMR's over sized head from its body. Finally, with one last effort, Emile ripped the seven hundred pound piece of high end electronics from the five tons of armored mechanical annihilation, triggering the ten pounds of C4 inside the mech.

BOOM!

"EMILE!"

The Spartan wasn't sure who screamed his name, in fact most of his world was a haze, but it provided just the right kick to get his ass back in the fight.

…

Tali couldn't believe it; she met Emile on some backwater human colony, only to most likely witness his death. The quarian could feel her stomach sink to the soles of her feet as she screamed his name.

She and the quarians under her command opened fire on the only mech left. Her Eviscerator didn't do much at fifty feet, but she was firing mostly out of spite. Prazza fumbled with his newly acquired Mattock, but soon figured out that he didn't need to swap thermal clips as he pounded the YMIR's shields.

As soon as the quarians began firing, the two Cerberus operatives started firing their own weapons at the behemoth, but all the mass accelerator rounds in the world would force those kinetic barriers down fast enough as the multi-ton machine charged the quarians, surprisingly quick for its massive size.

Talak raised his rocket launcher at the behemoth, firing a shot that finally punched through the powerful shields, but was still easily stopped by the thick armor plating. The YMIR spun its torso, knocking the three quarian marines away with its right arm before firing a rocket to finish them off.

Prazza was the first to recover from the toss, meaning he was the first to see the rocket bearing down on them. Knowing he and his marines were done for, the quarian closed his eyes and accepted his fate, meaning that he did not see a blue sphere of energy strike the rocket off course, sending it careening into the night sky. When Prazza did open his eyes, he was treated to the sight of a glowing blue Jacob Taylor rushing over to help them up.

Meanwhile, the YMIR stared down at the diminutive quarian in front of it. Tali's Eviscerator, despite being designed almost exclusively to punch through armor, was having a difficult time getting through the five inches of composite steel on the mech's chest.

The giant machine's right arm began spinning, an indication of the quarian's imminent demise. Before it could fire, however, something large smashed into the behemoth's back. The YMIR let loose a torrent of three millimeter tungsten rounds, but they all missed Tali as the mech struggled to throw its new rider.

Tali looked on astonished at what she was seeing. In retrospect, she knew it was foolish to ever assume Emile was out for the count, but after a shot like what he had just received, even _he_ was pushing the limits as he leaped onto the back of the YMIR mech.

The Spartan activated his magnetic boots, needing every last handle he could as he put both arms into prying the top armor plate of the mech's head off. The welding on the YMIR's head groaned in protest as the Spartan pulled, and while it was thick and heavy, it was still only steel and before long was ripped from its lower counterpart.

Emile stared down at the hardware before him, completely ignoring the head, but rather looking through the now exposed neck to find what he was looking for. He reared his right fist back, grabbing hold of the YMIR's left shoulder with his other hand, and plunged it down into the twisting gears and tangled wires to grab hold of the C4 pack before throwing it as far as he could.

BOOM!

Emile's fist had destroyed most of the YMIR's motor functions, but left the mini-gun online. Without being able to move however, the stream of high powered shots simply tore a hole through a couple of prefab shelters before Emile cut the CPU out with his kukri.

The mech slumped forward, sending Emile rolling, but, smooth as ever, the Spartan simply rolled with it and came to his feet in front of Tali.

"Keelah… take me now," the quarian engineer whispered.

"What?"

"Nothing," Tali responded, maybe a little too quickly.

Emile stared at her for a few seconds before letting it go, "So, where's this Veetor, I kinda have a bone to pick with him."

Emile wasn't as mad as he could have been, then again, he wasn't as injured as he could have been. Even his armor made it out of his scrape with the heavy mechs without too much damage, even if the average observer might wonder how he's alive. Scorch marks covered his entire front, and there was a small trail of dried blood on his left arm that led to small holes in his left shoulder pad.

"He should be in there," Tali pointed to the security station, "But it looks like it's locked."

"Oh Q-ball, when will you learn that there is no such thing as 'locked' to me?"

Emile walked up to the door, looking it over carefully for weak spots, before grabbing the right edge of the door and pulling, much to his wounded shoulder's protests. The door screeched as it grinded against the metal rails it was mounted on, but the quarian inside gave no indication that he heard, not even turning around at the noise, just staring at the security footage from around the colony.

"Hey," Emile called, still no reaction, "HEY!" still nothing.

CRASH!

A kukri embedded itself in the center screen, causing it to go offline and finally catching the quarian's attention, "But, machines keep Veetor safe! How'd you get in here? Wait, human, how did you escape?"

Emile quickly realized a shattered sense of reality when he saw one; after all, he was dealing with his own slowly rotting psyche, "What do you mean? Who was taken?"

"All the humans, monsters came for them, took them, and left, but they'll be back, they never leave anyone behind," the quarian babbled back.

"I wasn't here, who took the colonists? What monsters?"

"You weren't here, didn't see, but Veetor saw everything, Veetor sees everything," Veetor replied. Emile was ready to give up on him when the quarian tapped a few holographic keys and the monitors that didn't have a kukri stuck in them began showing fragments of the security footage for the abductions.

"Oh my God," Miranda spoke up from the doorway, "I think that's a Collector!"

Emile racked his brain, searching for any memories dealing with the Collectors, "Aren't they supposed to be a myth?"

Miranda shook her head, "Obviously not, but it was always said that the Collectors would trade technology for people."

"People?"

"A dozen blind krogan, fourteen six foot tall asari, really odd groups of people," the Australian women replied.

"Well it looks like they found whatever they were looking for," Emile said, "humans, lots of em."

Emile looked at the frozen image on the upper left screen, the one showing the Collector. It stood approximately six feet tall, and appeared to have an insect like carapace instead of skin, four eyes, and a point on the back of its head. The body shape was eerily similar to that of a turian, but where turians resemble birds, this species had a very distinctive insectoids look.

Emile shifted his gaze to the swarms of bugs that were flying around, stinging colonists and leaving them frozen, "Veetor, are there any samples of those bug things still running around?"

"Machines get stung by Seeker Swarms, but Seekers not freeze machines, Veetor collect Seekers from machines."

"Wow, he is busted," Jun remarked, appearing leaning against the wall next to Veetor, "Doesn't look like there's much hope for you, eh Four?"

Emile didn't respond but shook his head to clear his mind, which didn't go unnoticed by Tali, "Emile, is there something wrong?"

"It ain't nothin Q-ball," Emile replied unconvincingly, "Veetor, did you notice anything in particular about these monsters?"

"Veetor took many scans, dark energy," the surprisingly cooperative quarian responded.

Miranda's eyes lit up at the news, "Let's grab him, he has valuable data required for the mission."

"He isn't going anywhere with us, besides, we only need his omnitool," Emile said tiredly.

Miranda looked at the Spartan, "But…"

"BUT NOTHIN!" Emile roared spinning around faster than the other three occupants could react to, "You are here at MY expense, you will obey MY orders, and you will NOT question them!"

Tali, Veetor, and Miranda all recoiled from the angry monster in the room before Miranda regained her composure and sniffed at the Spartan before she left.

"Emile, are you alright?"

"I'm okay Tali, I promise."

"Are you sure? You usually call me Q-ball," Tali pointed out.

"Tali, please, just drop it."

"Alright, and uh, thanks for letting me take Veetor."

"It was no problem Tali," Emile said, looking down at her. The Spartan's dark eyes looked straight into her shiny silver eyes for a few seconds, sparking some sort of warm reaction in his chest, _the hell, am I getting sick?_

Tali finally broke eye contact, handed the Spartan Veetor's omnitool, and was about to leave before turning around and saying, "You know, I bet you're going to need a team if you're going to fight the Collectors."

"I suppose I am, you in?"

"I have one more mission to go on for the Migrant Fleet, but after that, I'm all yours," Tali said, the smile behind her visor evident in her voice.

Emile smirked behind his, "Sexy," he joked, flustering the quarian girl.

Noble One walked around into Four's line of sight after the quarian disappeared from the doorway, "What is she to you?"

"She's a friend," Emile responded openly.

"The Emile I knew was incapable of having friends, he just pissed everyone off and enjoyed doing it."

"I had to adapt, I can't lead a team of soldiers if they all think I'm a heartless bastard," Emile argued.

"Bullshit, Four," Carter pushed his bloody face directly in front of Emile's, "Bullshit."

**This seems like a good place to end this chapter. I have to admit, I had trouble getting any traction writing this chapter, and it will probably show. I know I promised Illusive Man, but, well, fuck you, I'm tired. Though the next chapter will probably start out on a Cerberus station where Emile will have a holographic conversation with the Illusive Man, get the list of recruits for the mission, and acquire two new crewmembers. Hint: one of them isn't a person, and the other is a redhead.**

**As you can see, Emile wasn't nearly as aggressive in this chapter as he was in the previous chapter, and you may be able to see a couple of reasons for this. One, the mechs don't have any blood to get his bloodlust going, two, he actually led two teammates into battle, whereas he and Voro just kind of share the same ship but go their separate ways on the ground, and three, Tali, I plan on her being a big part of Emile getting past his traumatized psyche.**

**Okay, that's pretty much it for this chapter, don't remember to tell me what you think about it in the comments, and please, don't flame the romance decision, because it's been made.**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	33. So It Begins

**Hello again good fellows! It is I, Ranschaj with another mediocre chapter in this absolutely terrible story called Mass Emile. I write this chapter under the watchful eye of my aunt's Saint Bernard, who is currently begging for some of the potato chips I am snacking on. I tell you this so you may understand why I write certain things, to give context to the subtle nuances. Nah, I'm just fuckin with ya, but a Saint Bernard named Annie is watching me write this and I just watched Cujo, so…**

**More positive reviews about the Tali pairing than I suspected, though there were still the anticipated upset Kasumi fans, but they were still surprisingly understanding. **

**In this chapter, it starts out with Emile arguing with the Illusive Man, then he meets EDI and Kelly Chambers, with some interesting developments, then goes to Afterlife. This chapter will be little to no actual action, but rather filler and a progression of Emile's mental state.**

A sleek matte black ship with the white letters SSV Normandy on the hull slid through space towards a broad space station. The ship itself moved with deadly grace as it passed through the station's security fleet without being detected, even though its crew had been invited by the leader of Cerberus.

A massive hangar door opened up to accept the frigate as soon as visual contact was made, and the sleek vessel slid into the spacious hangar deck and into a docking harness.

"You sure you want to do this, Commander?"

A seven foot Spartan in full armor cast a glance to the pilot of the ship, "Not really Joker, but the Alliance can't provide us with the intel we need, Cerberus can."

Joker swung his leather pilot's chair around to face the Spartan, "Come on Emile, what kind of intel did we have when we went after Saren?"

"Saren was just one man, there could be an entire planet of Collectors out there," Emile argued back.

"Saren was just one man with an army of _geth_!" Joker kept arguing, "I mean, come on Commander, you can take on some bug people!"

"But I don't even have the faintest clue as to where the Collectors could strike next, or where they're based out of," Emile replied, "Besides, we need all the help we can get."

"Yes, sir," Joker grumbled as he swung his chair back to face forward.

Emile looked to his left to see the two local Cerberus operatives on the Normandy, Miranda and Jacob, and possibly his only real friend left Voro Vadam approaching. The Spartan nodded to the three and moved to walk out of the Normandy and on to the Cerberus station but was met with the bloody visage of Thom B292.

"You know, you used to be so ready to do everything by yourself. You used to shun other people's help. You're soft," the ghostly Spartan said.

_He ain't real,_ Emile thought as he just walked through the image of his long dead friend. The station he stepped onto was the usual sterile environment one came to expect from disciplined organizations like Cerberus. The walls were white, as were the floors, and there wasn't a speck of dust to be seen.

Plastered across every surface that could fit one was the black and gold Cerberus symbol. The walls, the holographic screens, the stations workers, even the weapons the guards wielded. Emile would have considered that a little pompous, but considering each of his old teammates, his shotgun, his Mattock which he just realized was still with Prazza, and his kukri all had a skull either painted or carved on them. Joker even suggested that he, Emile, and Chakwas all get skull tattoos, which Chakwas shot down before it could gain any traction.

Every Cerberus employee in the station stopped to stare at the odd procession. A seven foot tall walking tank and a nine foot tall alien of an unknown species, both of whom weren't even making a sound as they walked, though the vibrations through the deck plating indicated the two weighed a rather extraordinary amount, followed by two Cerberus commandoes armed to the teeth.

The guards checked their weapons as the two foremost of the procession approached, looking concernedly at the two Cerberus operatives, who just nodded and motioned for the guards to lower their weapons.

Jacob leaned over to Miranda, "Could you imagine the carnage if they piss him off here, now?"

Miranda knew which of the two _him_ was. Back on Lazarus Station, Emile had slaughtered dozens of Cerberus troops in a few minutes, just using his fists and that devastating kukri. Not to mention the way he literally smashed through steel doors designed to hold out against breeching charges made of C4.

Of course, even if Emile couldn't kill everyone on this station with his bare hands, the huge alien walking next to him would finish the job. The shields that Voro wore were far more powerful than any personal kinetic barrier any of the Council species made, and could hold out against even a Widow shot, which was so powerful that any human wielding that weapon usually wound up with a broken arm.

The weapons the sangheili wielded simply bypassed kinetic barriers and ate through all but the toughest armor in seconds, but most impressive were the two swords at the huge alien's hips. Currently they just looked like gaudy handles, but Miranda had seen first hand just how dangerous they were when activated. The blue blades could bisect a krogan with little difficulty, and could slice through any armor, period.

Voro looked down at the small humans before him as he walked next to the Spartan. Despite their primitive weaponry, compared to plasma, and obvious physical inferiority, the proud Covenant warrior could tell each of them was ready to throw their lives down in defense of the innocents he could see trying so very hard to avoid the procession. Voro could respect people like that, further reinforcing his belief that the Hierarchs of the Covenant had been misinformed over their extermination of humanity.

Emile just stared straight ahead, trying to ignore the damaged fragments of his psyche vying for his attention, as he walked through the sterile halls of the Cerberus installation, headed for his meeting with the Illusive Man.

"Right through there, Commander," Jacob informed Emile as he was about to walk past a wider doorway.

The Spartan nodded gratefully and moved through the doors to find long room with a locker on the far end and a hallway extending to the right. Emile looked back at Jacob, wondering where the Illusive Man was.

Instead of getting his answer from Jacob, Miranda was the one who spoke up, "Right through there, Commander, that's where you'll meet the Illusive Man."

Emile, still not saying a word, jerked his head at Voro, indicating he wanted the sangheili along for the meeting, much to Miranda's objections.

"The Illusive Man wishes to speak with you alone, Commander!"

Emile, ever silent, turned to regard the operative, the skull's eyes appearing to burn with an internal fury at the femme fatale. The beautiful woman stopped in her tracks at the look Emile had sent her, quickly conceding the point to the dangerous Spartan.

The Spartan and the sangheili stepped into a black room with a circle in the center of the room. As the two stepped into the circle, scanners along the wall took their measurements, projecting their likeness into the Illusive Man's office.

"Commander, I thought I'd get to speak to you one on one," an older man sitting in what must have been a rather uncomfortable chair said.

"And I thought we'd be talking face to face," Emile rebutted. The Spartan looked the Illusive Man over. He had the look of an older man, maybe his mid-fifties, grey hair, crow's feet, and icy blue eyes that almost looked like they glowed.

"Touché, but I hope you understand this is mere precaution, Emile, something not unusual in our line of work."

"I'm gonna overlook the fact you just called me by my first name and ask you why I'm here."

"Commander," the Illusive Man began, not wanting to further aggravate the Spartan by calling him by his first name, "you along with Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor have just discovered that the Collectors are behind the attacks on human colonies."

"The reason you and I are speaking, rather than you hunting me down while I send strike team after strike team after you, is because we need each other."

Emile folded his arms over his chest and cocked his head, "Oh?"

"Indeed, you need the intel only Cerberus can supply on the Collectors, and as good as Miranda and Jacob are, Cerberus needs you to lead a team to go take them out."

"I ain't takin a bunch of your cronies with me," Emile said sharply.

"Of course not, I wouldn't expect you to, though I do ask that you take both Operative Lawson and Operative Taylor as well as one other Cerberus employee and a special package."

Emile changed to a little more aggressive stance, "Special package? I will not allow any bugging devices on my ship!"

"It isn't a bugging device, though it is loyal to Cerberus and will be reporting your activities directly to me."

Emile cocked his head, "So an AI?"

The Illusive Man blinked, "You sound uncommonly okay with that."

"I have experience in dealing with AI's. Who's the other person you want along?"

"A yeoman, Kelly Chambers."

"I don't need an assistant."

"Yeoman is just her title, Ms. Chambers is an accomplished psychiatrist and since this is practically a suicide mission, I would recommend having her along."

"I won't be taking a bunch of pussies after the Collectors, and no mission is a suicide mission with a Spartan."

"This mission will most likely be. Do you know where the Collectors come from?"

This actually gave Emile pause, "Not a clue."

"They come out of the Omega 4 relay, a relay no other ships have ever gone through and come back from."

"So we figure out where the relay leads and the Normandy goes in through slipspace, it may not be as instantaneous, but we'll get there."

"That's the problem, we don't know where it goes, plus when I'm talking about you taking on the Collectors, I could be speaking of an entire civilization, perhaps an entire planet's worth of these Collectors, do you really think a team, any team, can take on potentially six billion of them?"

Emile stared down the Illusive Man, "Fine, she can come, but back to the team, my old team is off doing their own things, I assume you have your own list?"

The Illusive Man smiled behind his cigarette, "Yes I do, I've already taken the liberty of forwarding the list of dossiers to you on the Normandy. You will find some of the most dangerous, most talented, and the most expendable members of the galactic community."

Emile slipped back into his relaxed stance, arms crossed while leaning back slightly, "If even one thing about any of these people isn't kosher, they're off the team."

"Again, I wouldn't expect anything less from someone of your reputation. You'll find the engineering team outside of the Normandy ready to install the AI."

Emile just nodded and left, ending their conversation as he stomped up the stairs and back into the adjacent room next to the QEC, not even casting Miranda or Jacob a glance as he left the room with Voro at his side.

"Impression?"

"Arrogant, believes himself to be untouchable, but diplomatic and deceiving. He disturbingly reminds me of the Prophet of Truth," the sangheili replied.

"How so?"

"His mannerisms are the same, casting about his 'beliefs' and watching as the fools at his feet pick them up with tender care."

"Is that what you always thought about Truth?"

"No, and I did not reach that conclusion until just now. This Illusive Man and Truth both built an organization around beliefs they themselves do not hold. The Illusive Man does not care about humanity, simply about himself and how much power he can hold, and he speaks with the same zeal as Truth always had, and this disturbs me."

"Why?"

"Because if the Prophet of Truth has been spouting of religious zeal without any true faith in it, then he has been using my people as well several other species for his and the Hierarchs own gain, rather than towards any path of enlightenment."

"You're worried about what's happening to your people right now?"

"Indeed Spartan, as, I'm sure, you are as well."

Emile didn't bother responding, Voro could see through him too well, and Emile wasn't one for blatant lying. The super soldier may be a cold, deadly, and abrasive man, but he wasn't much of a liar.

Trailing a few feet behind the two, Miranda listened to their conversation with interest. _Truth, his people, Emile's people? Plenty of research and plenty to send to the Illusive Man, too bad it's all shallow information, nothing to explain anything._

Miranda focused on the conversation in front of her, committing to memory the words Covenant, Hierarchs, Jiralhanae, Sangheilios, grunt suicide squads, all totally meaningless words, nothing with any real depth to it. If Miranda was going to find out what any of these words meant, she was going to have to somehow trick Emile into giving information away, or Voro, but she didn't think she'd ever get the giant reptilian alien to speak to her about anything of significance.

It wasn't long before the four of them reached the Normandy, though this time they arrived at the cargo bay door, and to a scene. Joker, Kenneth, and Gabby were all standing by the cargo door, all armed and preventing the Cerberus personnel from entering the ship with what looked like an AI's blue box.

"Commander, good thin' you's is here!" Kenneth spoke in barely understandable English.

"Yeah, good thing I am here, what the FUCK are you three doing?!" the Spartan barked as his boots clanged loudly on the deck, giving a little more sensory detail to remind Kenneth just how _big_ he was.

"Commander," Gabriella said, "they plan on installing an AI on this ship!"

"Well who the fuck do you think gave them permission?!"

"Whoa, Commander, _you _said they could?"

"You're damn right I did Joker; now put that gun down before you break every damn bone in your body!"

"Why would you let one of those things on my baby?" Joker shrieked.

Emile stopped his pacing back in forth in front of the three to glare down at Joker before whispering quietly, "You and I've had this conversation Joker, you know why I'd let one of them on."

"Yeah, but, you know this isn't the same thing right?"

"Joker," Emile said, anger slipping away but still harder than a rock, "trust me, if this thing gets out of hand, you and I both know it won't stand a chance."

Joker looked into the skull, not liking what he was about to say, "Fine, I guess it can come on board."

Emile huffed, "Like you had a fuckin choice."

Emile walked over to where the Cerberus technicians were standing next to the AI's blue box, "You can go."

"Um, we still need to install her, sir," one of the technicians stammered.

"I'll take care of that," Emile replied as he stuck a hand back down into the satchel on his left thigh, looking for something used to belong to Dot.

"Look, this is delicate equipment, you can't just beat it into place, it has to be carefully wired into the ship and frankly, even if we set up cables running to and from the Normandy, I doubt this ship has enough space in her computers to handle EDI."

"First of all, EDI?"

"Enhanced Defense Intelligence, it was designed to help with cyber defenses and handle a lot of the electronic warfare aspects of combat, oh, and you don't have to worry about her getting loose and taking control of the ship, she can't. We set up some of the best shackles anyone can make on her, she's sticking to her program and there's nothing she can do about it!"

Emile raised an eyebrow behind his visor at the technician's use of the pronoun 'she' after calling EDI an 'it' straight out of the gate, but shoved it aside, "All right, well my second point…"

Emile produced a small rectangular pad from his satchel that had a crystal in the center and jammed it into a slot. While not having been intended for this kind of data receptacle, UNSC AI technology was advanced, and the data chips that could carry them were highly adaptable to any sort of computer console, as was the saying amongst some Spartans, if it fits, then jam it in there.

The crystal in the disk began glowing a soft white and grew more intense with every second until a red light flashed on the edge of the disk, letting Emile know that the crystal now contained EDI. The Spartan pulled it out of the blue box and held the chip flat in his palm, "Wanna say hi to everyone EDI?"

"Greetings, Commander A239, Mr. Moreau, Mr. Donnelly, Ms. Daniels, it is a pleasure to meet you," a voice came from the chip as a three dimensional hologram of a sphere with a vertical 'mouth' appeared in Emile's hand.

The technicians looked on, baffled. EDI was as complex as a human brain, and until now, no one had ever heard of a chip the size of someone's palm capable of holding that much data. Joker looked on a little dispassionately, attempting to get a read on EDI, even if Emile was willing to trust this thing, he sure as hell wasn't.

"Good 'nuff?" Emile asked the technicians sarcastically.

The Spartan turned and walked towards the lift at the back of the cargo deck as he slotted EDI into the back of his helmet. Tali had been rather curious as to the purpose of this slot, and had questioned as to whether or not Emile really needed it. The super soldier had demanded that the quarian keep that part intact as she was revamping his armor, but didn't really have the heart to tell her.

Speaking of his heart, it kept getting warm at the most inconvenient times, _man I gotta see Chakwas about this, don't want to be getting_ _sick in the middle of battle._ Despite the warmth in his chest, the Spartan could feel the cold water rushing through his nerves as EDI was transferred to his neural implants.

Emile watched as EDI ran through the MJOLNIR's manual and tutorial on his visor before a small screen popped up on the upper right hand corner of his field of vision, "Your armor is quite fascinating, Commander A239."

"Yeah, it's a regular miracle, by the way, how did you know my name is A239?"

"In order to test my abilities, I was ordered to initiate a cyber attack on Arcturus Station to gain access to as much data as I could about you, the new ship designs the Alliance has been manufacturing, and any prototype weapons."

"And?"

"I have a block preventing me from answering this question."

Emile snorted behind his visor as he hit the controls for the elevator, taking him, Joker, and Jacob up to the top level, "Always somethin, ain't it?"

"Isn't," EDI responded.

"If you're gonna start correctin my grammar, then it won't be long afore I delete yo ass," Emile retorted.

"Correcting, before, and your, Commander."

Emile just huffed angrily at the AI and walked off the lift as it reached the CIC, "Jacob, you'll find the armory directly to your left. Joker, get us out of here."

"Excuse me, Commander, but Miss Chambers has yet to board the Normandy," EDI informed the Spartan.

"Damnit, Joker belay that order," Emile called up to the pilot.

_So we have to wait for Chambers, wait… where's Trip?_ Emile thought.

"AAAAHHH!" came a scream from the airlock near Joker.

Emile rushed to the airlock, expecting to find Trip ripping apart a human corpse, but instead found a petite redhead sitting down, back against a bulkhead, and Trip licking her face while the woman just giggled at the varren.

"Who's a good boy?" the woman cooed at the varren, who just barked stupidly in response before launching into another attack with his tongue.

Emile watched the spectacle for a second before yelling, "Trip! Get off the poor woman!"

Trip looked up at his master, whining a little in response before moving over and sitting at Emile's heel.

Emile looked down at the varren before turning his attention to the redhead who had finally stood up after wiping away all of Trip's slobber, "Miss Chambers I presume?"

"Please," the yeoman began, "call me K- Kelly…" she trailed off.

Kelly was only about five foot six inches, making Emile a full foot and a half taller than her, and the Spartan could tell she was intimidated by the fact.

"I always thought the people on the extranet were exaggerating when they talked about you," she breathed, "Please don't eat me."

"You've been briefed on you duties aboard this ship, but please remember that this ship is run as though it was an Alliance vessel. If you cannot follow the rules, I won't eat you, but Trip will," he finished by leaning in dangerously.

Kelly gulped a little as she could see her eyes reflected back at her in the skull's eye sockets, and nearly wet herself when the varren that had been so friendly a few seconds ago was now growling dangerously at her.

"Yes sir," she managed to get out.

"Good, then we won't have any problems, Miss Chambers," Emile said, blatantly referring to her by her last name rather than Kelly as she had insisted, "Get to your station."

Kelly walked past the Spartan and his varren and walked briskly towards the hologram of the Normandy.

"C'mon, Emile, she was at least hot!" Joker exclaimed, "Did you have to scare her so badly?"

"Just shut up Joker," Emile snapped, "EDI, where is the first dossier located?"

"There are three of the first six dossiers on Omega, Commander," the white sphere on the corner of his visor said.

"Joker, head to Omega!"

"WHAT?! Omega?! Why are we going there?" the distraught pilot shrieked.

"We got a team to build."

**A lame chapter, I know, and I'm sorry, but lets see you write stellar chapters while on heavy doses of anti-psychotics! Also, very few hallucinations in this chapter, huh? Probably also a side effect of my anti-psychotics.**

**I do have a question to pose to you guys, what do you think about me sending Voro to retrieve Mordin, Emile to grab Archangel, and Jacob and Miranda grab Zaeed. I know, I know, the game has them going in teams to grab these people, but I figured that just one freelancer on his own is far less suspicious than a group of people decked out in Cerberus gear and N7 armor, and Voro is an accomplished infiltrator, as shown in Halo Reach, so going through a disease ridden, vorcha infested area on his own wouldn't be a problem. Plus I really want to flesh out Voro's character a bit, and Miranda and Jacob will get plenty of action later on, but Voro has been here longer with little to no attention. If you're worried about Voro getting sick, don't be, I've got a very dull plan in place for that.**

**And on to Emile and EDI's interaction, I want to nip any arguments that Emile, since he's a Spartan III, can't interface with an AI in the bud. If this becomes a problem, which I don't think it will, I do have a small back story ready to go to explain this in detail. Also, if you're worried about EDI hacking Emile's armor and getting access to all of his restricted data, again, don't be. Dot blocked those things off with firewalls it made itself, it will take EDI quite a while to get through, and only when she's directly interfaced with Emile's armor, which will only be for a few ground missions, otherwise she's integrated with the ship.**

**Thank you for reading, and don't forget to review, thanks.**


	34. Fun Times on Omega

**And I'm back! I know, I know, stupid me and my forcing you to read this crap, but it isn't like I'm holding a gun to your head, I hire people for that, they should be getting there any moment now. Getting on to any major developments in the story, there aren't really any. This is gonna be your run of the mill chapter, recruiting Archangel, Mordin, and Zaeed, though Zaeed's mission will be a little cooler than cannon, as will Archangel's because it is Emile, and wherever he goes, suicidal hi-jinks are sure to follow.**

**Rather surprised everyone assumed that scale itch jumped to Kelly, though now that I think about it, Trip does get along with her a little too well. I've already thought out the scene where Mordin tells Emile about the scale itch, it's quite hilarious.**

**Well, as has already been stated, this chapter is the recruitment of Mordin Solus, Archangel, and Zaeed. Emile will go get Archangel, Voro the sangheili zealot will go get Mordin, and Miranda and Jacob will go find Zaeed.**

Emile walked into the comm. room in his full MJOLNIR, skull glaring at the occupants within, even if Emile wasn't. The other people in the room stared back, unfazed by the skull, but then again, the Spartan wasn't exactly trying to intimidate anyone.

"EDI, bring up the mission objectives," Emile spoke.

At the center of the comm. room, a table with a glass center began to glow before a small hologram of a sphere on a pedestal popped up and began speaking, "First objective should be Archangel, as he appears to be in the most danger, second is Mordin Solus, who is running a clinic in Omega's lower wards where a dangerous plague has begun spreading, and finally, Zaeed Massani, currently working a job in Blood Pack territory, given his dossier's references to extensive experience with being outnumbered, it is likely that he can handle himself."

"Thank you EDI," Emile said before leaning forward and putting his hands on the edge of the table, "Zorro, I want you to get Mordin before things get too bad down there. Don't let yourself, get seen on the way in, but once you're there I trust your judgement," the sangheili nodded in response, "Miranda, Jacob, I want you to find Massani, help him complete his job, drag him back kicking and screaming, I don't care, just make sure he gets here in one piece."

"And yourself, Commander?" Miranda asked.

"If Archangel's in as much trouble as Blue Suns' transmissions suggest, it would be best if I go alone, I can move a lot faster on my own and I can get a little more 'creative' with my tactics," the super soldier responded.

"Commander we're pulling into Omega," Joker called through the comms.

Emile looked up from the table, "Did anyone see us come in?"

"Not a soul, Commander. As far as anyone is concerned, the docking arm we're attached to his hanging on to nothing."

"Good work Joker," Emile replied, showing an uncharacteristic appreciation for his pilot, "Everyone else, get to it."

The Spartan slotted a small chip the size of his palm into an outlet on the table, downloading the shipboard AI, EDI, and placed the chip into the back of his helmet. The Spartan suppressed a shiver as the reaction of the AI moving into his neural implants simulated someone pouring liquid nitrogen down his spine.

"EDI, you there?"

"Affirmative, Commander, any orders?"

"Establish a permanent commlink with the others, I don't want to lose contact and I certainly don't want anyone hacking their way into our comm. line, got it?"

"Commlink established, Commander, anything else?"

"Plot the quickest route to Archangel's position and display it on my HUD, other than that, keep me appraised of the others' situations," Emile ordered as he stopped in the Normandy's armory.

The super soldier grabbed his shotgun and slung it onto his back before grabbing his newest weapons. His old Mattock rifle that he had spent hours modifying had been left with a quarian marine back on Freedom's Progress, and his Carnifax was great for popping heads at thirty to fifty yards, but he needed a weapon capable of suppressive fire and ripping through multiple enemies at a time. That was why there were two Tempest submachine guns folded up on his waist.

The Tempest was a standard high volume submachine gun, high rate of fire, low stopping power, and a higher slug speed than the average assault rifle, meaning that it was designed to overload kinetic and biotic barriers, rather than rip chunks off armor and punch large nasty holes in people. Most enemies Emile came across would be outfitted with barriers rather then armor plating, and anything but a krogan will die from a couple of mass accelerator rounds to the body, and he always had his shotgun for them.

On his lower back was his old M319 Individual Grenade Launcher from Reach. Thanks to mass accelerator tech, the grenades no longer followed an arcing path, instead firing in a straight line like an oversized pistol loaded with exploding rounds. Each grenade was coated in centimeter thick carbon steel, allowing the rounds to punch through the weak spots in armored vehicles and detonate from the inside.

Of course then there was his M45D Tactical Shotgun aka "Sledgehammer." It didn't quite look like his old shotgun, the one he had brought with him from Reach, but it did share the same firepower and enough recoil to break a krogan's arm and seriously damage Emile's shoulder if he isn't wearing his MJOLNIR. The shotgun could carry eight thermal clips, having to cycle through a new one after every shot, and each clip had the capacity to punch through any personal kinetic barrier ever designed and almost any biotic barrier.

After Emile had strapped down all of his weapons and firmly placed his kukri in its sheath on his right shoulder pad, the Spartan stepped out of the armory and headed for the airlock, Voro on his heels.

"Spartan, do you not think that a docking arm extending and touching nothing would alert someone?"

"Of course it will Zorro, in fact I imagine we'll have a little party waiting for us at the airlock. You and me, we'll be under cloak, it's time Miranda and Jacob earn their keep," Emile replied.

The Spartan and the sangheili exited the docking arm first, much to the confusion of the salarian vagrant and a group of thugs that looked like they belonged to some independent merc group standing there. None of them were paying close enough attention to really get a grasp on the slight shimmers as the next two out of the door firmly caught their attention.

"You! Humans, what is meaning of this?!" the batarian yelled.

To the side, a huge shimmer motioned to an even larger one, indicating it was time for the larger shimmer to leave while the smaller one stayed to watch and appraise the two Cerberus agents.

"I don't understand, what is the meaning of what?" Miranda asked faux sweetly.

"Why is that docking arm extended? Why were you two in there?!"

"Can't two people get a little alone time?" Miranda responded playfully. Emile could tell Jacob was having a hard time trying not to look embarrassed.

The batarian was caught off guard as well, "W-what? Oh, well… don't extend a docking arm just so you humans can fuck!"

Miranda just smiled, "Won't happen again, big boy."

The batarian and the two turians he had brought with them walked over to the docking arm controls, apparently looking to retract the airlock. Before they could, however, Operative Lawson slipped her silenced Locust submachine gun from her hip, fired one shot into the salarian vagrant's head, and likewise with the three henchmen while Jacob covered the door, making sure it stayed closed while Miranda dealt with the threat.

As soon as she confirmed all four enemies were dealt with, Miranda watched the door while Jacob moved the bodies into a secondary airlock, closed the door, and flushed the bodies into space, "All clear, Miranda!"

"Good work, Jacob, let's go find Massani."

Emile didn't even shift from his spot as he watched the two walk out of the room directly past him, no need to let them know their performance was being evaluated. The Spartan was impressed, he didn't expect much different from Lawson, but Taylor was more of a marine, and the super soldier was impressed with his ability to keep up with the act Miranda was putting on for the henchmen, and his knowledge of what to do once Miranda decided to drop the act.

Emile moved to follow the two out of the docking station, but when the door opened for him, a man, the same size as Emile and wearing similar armor stood in his way.

"So this is how you are gonna spend your time, Four? There are colonists being abducted, tortured, and killed right now, and here you are, chasing after a bunch of aliens in the hopes that they'll give a shit. You really have turned your back on us," Carter said, shaking his head while blood flew from his mouth at every syllable.

"SHUT UP! Just SHUT UP!" Emile screamed at the hallucination. His helmet speakers were off, but the sound was still heard by EDI.

"Commander, I did not say anything," the AI said confusedly.

At the sound of the AI's voice, the Spartan standing across from Emile vanished, leaving no evidence he was ever there, except for the slight shake in the Commander's limbs and his accelerated heart rate.

"Commander A239, I have detected an elevated heart rate and adrenaline levels, are you alright?"

"I'm fine EDI, just… just point me to Archangel," Emile said through clenched teeth.

"Affirmative, Commander."

…

Voro followed the directions on the visor provided by the Spartan's construct. One glance at the elaborate headdress the massive sangheili wore to indicate his status as High General of the Holy Covenant would tell the observer there was no visor, but in fact a thin sheet of transparent material thrice as hard as a Spartan's visor covered his eyes, projecting holographic information visible only to his eyes.

The huge alien walked unnoticed through the throngs of smaller aliens. Judging from the strange sights, Voro judged that he could have walked uncloaked through the crowds and never received more than a cursory glance. Still, the sangheili remained cloaked, there was no reason to peak anyone's curiosity.

Vadam took the time travelling towards the plague zone to observe his surroundings. What he saw disgusted him. Weaklings and cowards hiding behind a mercenary uniform exploiting more weaklings not smart enough to put one on. Vorcha sitting in piles of garbage, eating the filth they sat in and glaring at the other passer bys. The fact that he was here to pick out someone who could possibly help the Spartan destroy the cowardly Collectors bothered Voro. How could one live in this hovel and still have any virtues? Be of any use?

Nevertheless, the sangheili would follow the Spartan's orders to the very end; he had earned the right to command such respect from Voro.

The sangheili moved down an alley and observed a turian male and human female arguing, "Look, lady, you can't go in, that's final!"

"But I'm human, the plague doesn't infect humans!" the female human pleaded, "Please?! All my things are in my apartment! I have to get to it before looters do!"

"Look, lady, I'm real sorry bout your apartment but you can't go in there! It isn't safe!" the turian reasoned. Voro could tell that the turian was on the verge of just shooting the woman rather than repeat himself, not to mention that the kinetic barrier, while easily destroyed by punching the wall panel, would lead to the turian or some other passerby seeing him, so the sangheili thought he would try the peaceful approach.

The nine foot, three quarter ton sangheili uncloaked as he stepped forward, making not even a whisper of a sound. The turian, whose focus was solely on the woman before him, didn't even see the huge reptilian until he was enveloped in Voro's shadow.

The guard's eyes threatened to pop out of his skull when he finally looked up. He had been expecting an elcor, or maybe an oversized krogan, but nothing quite as ferocious looking or exceptionally tall as the massive maroon figure standing over him.

The four mandibles lined with razor sharp teeth moved as the monster spoke, "The door, open it."

"And if I don't?" _Oh Spirits! Why the FUCK would I say that?!_

In response, the giant reptile ignited two, two pronged swords made of pure light and spoke once more, "I showed myself as a courtesy to you, if you'd prefer, I could simply slaughter you, this female, and destroy the door's locking mechanism and continue on my way. The door, open it."

"O-of course," the turian whispered.

As the avian turned to disengage the door's kinetic barrier, Voro sniffed the air, confident that the smaller alien had just defecated in his pants, and that the woman behind him was attempting to stifle her crying.

As the barrier dropped and the saurian stepped through, Voro turned to the two witnesses, "I was never here."

The two watched the hulking reptilian disappear through the doorway and kept staring until two turians armed with assault rifles claimed their attention, "Hey, we got reports of a nine foot tall monster? … guys, HEY!"

The guard finally spun around to meet the questioning gaze of the other two turians, "Monster? No monster, isn't that right ma'am?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah! No monster here, no siree!"

"Well… okay, I guess we'll be…" one of the new turians sniffed the air, "Spirits! Did you shit yourself?!"

…

Jacob ducked underneath inaccurate fire from an Eclipse salarian wielding a rifle far too heavy for the lanky amphibian to wield effectively, "Miranda, I thought this was Blood Pack territory?!"

"That's what EDI said!" Miranda responded over the din of battle. Mass accelerator rounds pinged off the steel walls of Omega from the various Eclipse forces spread out before them. The two had arrived five minutes ago, and almost immediately came under fire from Eclipse mercs. As they had pushed through the salarian infantry, the two had come across dozens of vorcha corpses as well as a couple of dead krogan, indicating a possible incursion by the Eclipse.

"EDI," Jacob asked into his comm. as he pulled an asari with her barriers down out of cover for Miranda's silenced Locust to pick out, "what's up with the Eclipse?"

"I have been monitoring Blood Pack and Eclipse communiqué's, it would appear that the Blood Pack has hired Zaeed to help them push the Eclipse back as most of their regular forces are either pushing through Blue Suns territory in the plague zone, or committed to attacking Archangel," the AI responded from Emile's helmet across Omega.

"The Blood Pack hiring a human freelancer? That's odd," Miranda commented.

EDI tried to respond, but was cut off by the sound of an Eclipse rocket crashing into the steel pillar Jacob was using as cover. The mass effect fields used by Omega to simulate gravity made each level's floor heavy enough to simulate the gravity of a planet, meaning that even though the fields were reversed on the other side of the plating, i.e. the ceiling, it still required heavy duty pillars every several feet at the edges of the mass effect fields.

So with the pillar's integrity compromised, a twelve foot section of the plating above Jacob Taylor's head was subject to the artificial gravity and came crashing down.

The operative had little time to react as he had to move twelve feet in less then a second, but a biotic charge took the operative out of danger… and directly into the Eclipse mercenaries' position.

"Um… hi?" Jacob asked tentatively. The various salarians, humans, and asari just stared back for a few seconds before shifting their weapons to him.

The operative quickly put up a barrier, but it would last long against the heavy firepower, "Miranda! Some help?!"

In response, an explosion of static electricity laced its way through the artificial kinetic barriers of the assembled salarians and humans, disabling them and giving Jacob a chance to go on the offensive with his Scimitar Assault shotgun.

The Cerberus agent raised the white barrel of the shorter shotgun and punched a round through the oversized head of one salarian, turned the semi-automatic shotgun on a human and blew his chest out, shifted to a salarian engineer who was desperately attempting to activate his short circuited omnitool but was cut short as Jacob's Scimitar barked its third consecutive shot, painting the other mercs with green blood, and finally twisted to spit napalm laced buckshot through the stomach of a human female before she could get a shot off with her Mattock.

After the four shots, Jacob finally brought his other hand to the foregrip of the Scimitar, expecting to have to deal with the asari commando and her biotic friends, but found the two asari vanguards dead with neat holes in their heads, and the commando quite occupied in a biotic duel with Miranda.

Miranda, being the genetically perfect human, was gifted with superior biotic abilities that, even then, were no match for an angry asari commando. The Eclipse merc was summoning biotic warps at a rather terrifying rate, leaving Miranda on the defensive and disarmed as she required both hands to deal with the assault of dark energy.

Taylor considered his options, a biotic charge would disrupt the commando, but leave him stunned as using a biotic charge against a biotic barrier felt like slamming into concrete, making him an easy target for the commando. He could fire his Scimitar, but the four shots left on his current thermal clip wouldn't even make a dent, so he went with his third, and probably most foolish option of the three, he tackled her.

The Cerberus agent pursued the advantage, sitting atop the asari's torso and throwing punches into her helmetless face. One punch: a grunt was all he got, second punch: a little spittle flew from her mouth, third punch: the nose finally broke and blood leaked freely from the ruined appendage.

Before Jacob could throw the fourth punch, a massive burst of dark energy slammed the operative into the ceiling. Jacob's Alliance training with the Corsair's kicked in before he even realized he had been thrown by the asari, _duck the head, land on your back, roll away._

The ex-Alliance soldier hit the ground on his back, breaking a rib but nothing serious enough to be detrimental to his performance on the battlefield. As soon as the operative regained his bearings, Jacob rolled to the side, towards his Scimitar and away from the eruption of biotic rage where he once was.

Taylor slid up to his knees, Scimitar in hand, and fired napalm laced, galvanized steel buckshot into the asari's biotic barriers. Four short barking noises were made, followed by the ignition of the napalm and the associated FWOOM of the thermobaric explosion and the gust of wind as the fireball retracted, sucking the air back in with it.

As the smoke cleared, the commando was revealed, scorched, but unharmed, and very, very angry. The asari's yellow armor was covered in a blue glow, as were several pieces of large debris. One chunk, a solid cubic foot of cement, was hurled at Miranda, who barely destroyed it with a timely biotic throw, and another piece, this time a steel beam, speared towards Jacob who simply dodged the projectile.

Miranda hurled a ball of dark energy at the commando, where it was met with the still strong biotic barriers of the dangerous blue alien. The Cerberus operative, despite looking calm as ever on the outside, was worried. No standard asari commando should have biotic barriers that strong! Whoever this troubling alien was, it was obvious she had a significant status amongst the Eclipse mercs, most likely outfitted with the best biotic enhancement tech on Omega, not to mention the likely possibility of a heavy dose of red sand.

As the asari was ready to further her biotic tantrum, something large, gruff, and yellow dropped down onto the floor next to her, if Jacob had to take a guess, the figure had probably come from the hole in the ceiling, and delivered a right hook into the asari's nose, further breaking it and knocking the blue alien on her ass.

Before the asari could retaliate, the tattooed man brought around a weathered Mattock, pulled the trigger twice, and turned away from the commando saying in a gruff voice to match his appearance, "I bloody hate commandoes."

Miranda eyed the Mattock curiously, as she already knew who the man was. There was no way that rifle should have punched through the commando's biotic barrier so easily, just one shot to break it, the next to punch through her forehead. Perhaps the man was using a highly advanced kind of warp ammo, but as far as Miranda knew, a person had to be biotic to use that particular weapon modification.

The man stood over Jacob Taylor, either not noticing or not caring about Miranda Lawson's presence, "Get up kid, there's a lot more a her waitin to be killed."

Jacob stood up, clutching his cracked rib as he did so, "You Zaeed Massani?"

"Tha one an' only. You just gonna stand around all day, girl? Or ya gonna help fight some Eclipse?"

"Zaeed Massani," Miranda began authoritatively, "I'm Miranda Lawson, this is Jacob Taylor; we're with Cerberus."

"I know who you are, girl, and you didn't answer me question, you gonna fight or lounge around all day dressed up like an asari whore?"

…

Emile snuck up behind two turians decked in blue armor of the Blue Suns, kukri in hand, before grabbing the right turian and smashing his head against the steel wall, splattering blue blood and bony faceplates against the deck while thrusting his twelve inch kukri in his left hand deep into the neck of the other turian, silencing the merc and killing him.

The Spartan swept his gaze over the two dead turians, they were the first mercs he had encountered, and according to EDI, a recon group sent to get some high ground on Archangel. The two turians were certainly equipped to take the high ground, one turian with a sniper rifle and the other carrying a small spotting scope on his hip.

"EDI, where were these guys headed?"

"There is an opening looking down on Archangel's base, just above where the rest of the mercenary forces are located. Continue another four meters, then it will be five meters to your right, Commander."

"Thanks EDI, status of the other teams?"

"Operative Lawson reports that she and Operative Taylor have found Zaeed Massani, Voro Vadam's transponder indicates that he has just entered the plague zone."

Emile grunted an acknowledgment as he stealthily approached the opening above Archangel's base. Finally, he stood to his full height as he stood at the ledge, looking straight down at what must have once been one of the nicer homes on Omega and the narrow bridge between it and the mercs.

A flash of movement inside the house caught Emile's eye, the Spartan reached for his Tempests, but stopped as he saw a turian in familiar maroon armor and a white skull painted over the right breast. The super soldier could have sworn both he and the turian made eye contact through the scope, and that both could see the slight smirk crossing each other's faces.

Archangel tilted his rifle down towards the freelancing mercs foolishly charging down at him.

CRACK!

One merc fell, but another aimed his M-100 Grenade Launcher at the turian, firing an explosive that shook the house. Archangel spun out of cover again but never fired his gun, since the merc with the grenade launcher found his life cut short by a rather heavy figure landing on him.

Emile stood ankle deep in the red paste that used to be a freelancer merc, raised his two Tempest submachine guns and fired into the stunned mercs ahead of him. The soldiers of fortune fell rather quickly as the Tempests spat out death at over nine hundred rounds a minute, shredding through the meager defenses that awaited them and sinking deep into the flesh behind them.

The Spartan swung around, pointing both weapons up at the barrier behind him and let loose a five round burst into each freelancing merc that popped over the crude construction. Finally, the last one hopped over the barrier, promptly receiving a five round burst that ripped through the woman's weak shields, her inferior ceramic armor, and the heart and lungs.

Emile folded the Tempests and placed them on his waist, grabbed a chemical explosive from the grenade belt on his chest, primed it, and tossed it over the barrier, "That oughta slow em down."

The Spartan turned to walk towards Archangel's base, not bothered by the flash of light and the muffled boom coming from behind the barrier. He did step over a piece of the debris from the explosion, the upper half of a vorcha, but gave all of his attention to Archangel, giving him a casual salute as he walked into the building.

The maroon armored turian returned the salute, equally casual, before turning around. Emile heard a gunshot, a scream and nothing more, _damn turian's still got it._

The Spartan jogged up the stairs, the metal groaning under his weight, and walked in behind Archangel, who was staring down his scope. Emile waited a few seconds…

CRACK!...CRACK! CRACK!

The turian turned to face Emile, grabbing his helmet and pulling it off in the process, "Emile, what brings you to my quaint little neighborhood?"

"Thought I'd see the sights, Claws, or should I say Archangel?"

"Heh, just a name the locals gave me for all my 'good deeds' but please, it'll always be 'Claws' to you," Garrus replied.

"Ya know," the super soldier began, "I had heard Archangel was running an entire team, but all I see is you, cornered."

"You want to know how I got into my current… predicament?" Emile nodded, "It's a long story, short version is, I was betrayed, now I'm cornered but here you come, dropping out of the Spirits damned sky to save my bony plated ass."

The Spartan shrugged, knowing they didn't have the time for further questions, "Shall we bust our way out of here?"

"Sure thing, but I suggest we let them come to us, there's damn near four hundred mercs out there," Garrus answered.

Emile turned to look at the barricade separating them from the mercs. His sharp eyes easily picked out the twelve LOKI mechs hopping the barricade, "Well then, we haven't any time to lose."

…

Voro stood over the two Blue Suns mercenaries, batarians, judging by their guttural screams as he bisected them with his twin plasma swords. The sangheili turned to look deeper into the plague zone, and the littered fires of the burning infection. It was in this moment Voro was thankful for his species incredible immune system, something that prevented viral diseases, infections, even attacked cancerous cells before they could form tumors, there were in fact no known microbial creatures capable of making a sangheili sneeze, much less kill one.

The hulking saurian continued on towards the clinic, or was going to until a coughing caught his attention. It was a batarian, dying by the looks of it, and most likely could benefit from medical attention.

The giant sighed, he had killed nearly a thousand batarians in the past few months, fighting along side the Spartan, yet as Voro watched the four eyed alien in front of him nearly cough to death, he knew there was no way he could leave him to die, honor demanded that he help the unfortunate batarian.

Voro made sure that the humanoid could hear him before he ever saw the sangheili, but remained cloaked until standing over him. The smaller alien called out weakly, "Who," coughing fit, "who's there?"

Vadam decloaked, revealing himself to the sickly man, who responded with cries for help that went unheeded as the sangheili's scaly four fingered hand descended upon him…

"Be still, I must slaughter these pathetic jackals, I will be back for you."

The batarian nodded in response as his gigantic savior faded from view. The sickly man could feel the slight tremors in the steel deck plating of the plague ridden slums as the huge saurian moved onto the Blue Suns patrol. Screams followed, gunshots, two snaps followed by a fading hiss before the distinct sound of plasma burning flesh filled the air, ending the screams.

The distinct tremors of his rather heavy savior's footsteps approached and stopped a few feet in front of the batarian. The huge alien slowly materialized in front of him before reaching down with his massive hand, "Come, there is an apartment, I will store you there and send for medical attention."

"Not like I'm in any position to argue," the batarian replied weakly before falling into a coughing fit.

Voro took care not to jostle the fragile humanoid too much as he walked over to the apartment, plasma repeater in his right hand while the batarian was in his left. The saurian's huge headdress swung from side to side as he looked the apartment over for any mercenaries. When the hulking alien looked towards the far end of the apartment, his eyes were met with two humans.

Voro swung his plasma repeater up, taking aim at the humans who immediately ducked for cover, "Please don't kill us!"

Vadam cocked his head at the female human's pleading, obviously these weren't mercenaries, more likely they were civilians taking cover from the undoubtedly angry Blue Suns mercenaries outside their home.

The sangheili lowered his plasma repeater before speaking in perfect, albeit disturbingly deep, English, "Do not come out from behind there until I leave, I will leave behind a batarian, he has been struck with the plague and is dying; make certain he does not before a medical team from Dr. Mordin Solus' clinic arrives, then travel with them to the clinic, it will be safe there."

"How do we-"

Voro interrupted the human's response by audibly igniting his plasma blade and roaring, "DO AS I SAY OR I WILL BURN YOUR MONGREL HIDES!"

"OKAY! Please don't kill us!"

The sangheili snorted before leaving the apartment building and continuing towards the sound of battle.

When he arrived at the sound of mass accelerator rounds, he found two Blue Sun turians fighting off a wave of vorcha and varren, rather bravely Voro thought privately, though they were in his way.

Quickly cloaking, the huge saurian stepped up behind the two turians, grabbed them by their opposite shoulders, and slammed their heads together hard enough to break the weak ceramic helmets and the metallic bony plates, releasing bluish grey matter which disrupted his cloaking field.

Voro looked into the shocked eyes of the vorcha, sensing a good straight up fight, _good, I've been sneaking around for so long, I've almost forgotten what battle feels like._

With an earth shattering roar, the nine foot reptilian charged the first vorcha, stooped over to compensate for the flamethrower on its back. The decidedly smaller alien attempted to bring the flamethrower to up in time to stop the massive reptile, but was stalled as a burning plasma sword speared its gut and destroyed the fuel lines between the tanks.

Voro picked the vorcha up in his left hand, knowing that the flaming backpack would soon explode, and hurled the puny alien into a nearby group of its comrades. The resulting explosion left little other than some charred remains.

Another vorcha wielding a Katana Assault shotgun let off a round into the bigger alien's shields, but didn't even remain alive long enough to watch his shot fail as a double pronged sword swiftly decapitated him.

Not disparaged by their comrade's failure in close quarters, the rest of the vorcha were quite content to throw themselves into the deadly saurian's reach, where they were immediately cut down. Nonetheless, some were able to get in good punches against the sangheili, while they wouldn't even bruise, the fact they managed to get through his personal shielding was impressive.

In fact, Voro was rather impressed with the vorcha. They may be stupid, abhorrently so, but they were courageous, physically adept, and tough. If only the Covenant could have replaced the cowardly unggoy with vorcha. Not only do they not need methane to breathe, but they were actually capable of staying awake on patrols.

Soon after starting the battle, Voro stood amongst knee high piles of smoking vorcha bodies, most cut in half at the waist, others straight down the middle, a roar shook the area. Voro snapped his head to the source of the noise, finding a krogan leading another group of vorcha roaring at him.

"FEEL THE BLOOD RAGE!" it screamed at him. Voro raised what passed as an eyebrow for his species before sidestepping the krogan's foolish charge and beheading the smaller reptile.

Voro was not as impressed with krogan. Krogan were at least capable of rational thought, tactics, and command, Wrex had proved that, but the more of the lumbering beasts he fought, the less and less impressed he was with their constant stupidity and perception of physical superiority even when they were clearly outclassed. One thing they did have going for them, though, was their incredible durability, matching even a jiralhanae in their ability to take a hit and keep fighting.

The vorcha the krogan had brought with him fell within seconds of engaging the sangheili and Voro was soon at the clinic's door, "Let. Me. In."

The terrified human shook a little as he took one hand off of his Avenger assault rifle to unlock the door, "Go ahead sir."

Voro shook his head at the human's behavior, they all scared so easily, except for the Spartan. The clinic fell deathly silent as the huge reptile walked through the clinic's waiting room.

He turned to an asari at the clinic's desk, "Mordin Solus, where is he?"

"T-through the back there, y-you'll hear h-him."

Indeed he could already hear the salarian prattling on about some patient or another. Voro walked silently through the narrow hallway before coming upon the operating room containing an older salarian and a human female assistant.

Neither noticed him, and the mechs watching him certainly weren't screaming for attention either, so Voro watched as Mordin attempted to save the batarian on the table's life. The salarian worked quickly, speaking in short rapid utterances, forcing the woman to try her best to keep up with the fast paced genius.

The sangheili was impressed with the doctor's work, and in a few minutes the batarian was stable, allowing Mordin to turn his attention towards the lab directly behind a massive saurian.

To the salarian's credit, he wasn't shocked for long, "Unknown species appearing here, now. Here to stop distribution of cure? That would mean source of disease is new species," pause to breath, "unlikely. Here to fight? Armor and weaponry suggests a high disposition towards violence, again, unlikely. Vorcha weak, krogan stupid, heavy musculature suggests you prefer fighting creatures far more dangerous…"

Voro decided to step in, "I'm here to recruit you," that caught the doctor's attention, "You've heard of the Spartan?"

"Of course, the Spartan, Spectre Emile, Savior of Citadel…"

Voro interrupted him again, "He's taking on the Collectors. They've been abducting human colonies and we need you're help to neutralize their bio-weapons."

"Hm, no."

"What?!"

"No, still too much work to do here. Cure needs to be distributed, will join once slums are clean…"

This time it wasn't Voro that interrupted Mordin, but rather the ventilation systems turning off.

Mordin's eyes widened, "Oh dear."

…

An Eclipse Vanguard, an asari specifically, initiated a biotic charge at the giant armored figure standing in the middle of the bridge, preventing her and all of the other mercs from getting to Archangel.

Her charge brought her directly up to the figure, but only to meet a fist with enough force to literally decapitate her. Before her head even hit the floor, the giant swung his unusually long shotgun towards a human male, completely decked out in the yellow armor of the Eclipse, and fired.

The shot formed a perfect circle with the center placed directly on the man's sternum and forming a completely clean hole through the chest cavity.

Emile swung his shotgun back towards a tightly grouped trio of salarians, a poor formation when facing a wielder of the Sledgehammer. The buckshot ripped chunks off of each salarian and completely severed the top half of the first salarian from the bottom.

Another asari thought she could get the drop on Emile, but was met with the butt of his shotgun, shattering her skull. The Spartan kept the momentum going as he put his left boot three inches deep into the chest of another Eclipse merc. Still in step, the super soldier swung around, pumping the shotgun with his left hand while his right hand grabbed his kukri, and brought the twelve inch knife in a swing aimed at a salarian's thin neck, completely decapitating him.

"Emile, looks like Jaroth is deploying a YMIR mech, you might want to get out of there," a voice spoke in his ear.

"Hang on Claws, I got an idea, line up a headshot but don't take it, at least not yet."

Back in the apartment building, a maroon armored turian shrugged before looking back into his scope. Garrus watched the YMIR drop and raise up, and how Emile pumped a round from his shotgun into monster mech's chest, dropping the barriers and even scratching the armor.

"Now?"

"Hang on."

_For what?_ Garrus thought. It soon became clear as Emile pulled the top of the YMIR down, giving him a good platform to push with as he crouched down into the smallest possible size, and then heaved.

Armor safety locks disengaged, surges of adrenaline that make a krogan blood rage look like a cup of tea, and perfect lifting form all culminated in a maneuver that should be impossible. Emile lifted the five ton YMIR mech off its feet, and hurled it over the short barrier separating him and the rest of the mercs.

"NOW!"

CRACK!... BOOM!

Ten pounds of C4 hidden within the depths of the mechanical monster exploded as a direct result of the YMIR's CPU being compromised, turning a last ditch offensive weapon into a massive backlash of friendly fire as the mercs on the other side of the defensive barricade simply disappeared into the bright yellow fireball. The leader of the Eclipse mercs, a salarian named Jaroth happened to be sitting far enough away from the explosion that his kinetic barriers took the brunt of the explosion and his tech armor was able to absorb the impact after being thrown.

A bruised, emotionally compromised Jaroth got up from his prone position, angry that his entire company of mercs had just been obliterated, "If you want something done right…"

The salarian leapt over the barricade, where he was promptly grabbed by the throat and waist, held over the head of the Spartan who had just decimated just fewer than seventy of the one hundred and ten Eclipse mercs to hop over the barricade. Jaroth squirmed, but was held fast by the impossibly strong hands.

Out of the corner of his eye, the trapped salarian could see the surveillance camera Tarak and he had placed so they could watch the progress of the battle away from Archangel's legendary scope. The light was blinking, a sure sign that Tarak and Garm were watching and could see the whole thing.

Before anymore thoughts could come to Jaroth, Emile slammed the fragile amphibian's body against his knee, severing his spine and killing him instantly.

…

Tarak, a batarian and leader of the Blue Suns here on Omega stood silently in shock as he looked on the holoscreen. Here he was, the Demon, the God of Vengeance himself, and he was looking straight at Tarak through the screen. The blood spattered skull seemed to twist into a vile smirk.

The batarian turned to the red plated krogan battlemaster next to him, "Your Blood Pack is up next, and be careful."

Garm scoffed, "Since when do you care pyjak?"

"I don't, but if you succeed, then I won't have to fight this… this… _monster._"

"It's just a human in fancy armor, just because he killed Jaroth doesn't mean a varren's shit!"

"That human is known to my people as the God of Vengeance, his coming was even predicted, though no one would have guessed he was a human," Tarak remarked, "I have family in the Hegemony military. Believe me, krogan, he _earned_ that name."

**Hey, sorry this chapter took so long, and that I never even completed the recruitment missions, but I felt that this was a good point to cut off. So far we have, Voro in the clinic with Solus, Miranda and Jacob fighting off Eclipse mercs with Zaeed and the Blood Pack, and Emile and Garrus have just finished round one of the shootout bonanza. **

**If your wondering why Zaeed was hired by Blood Pack mercs, remember the story Zaeed told about how he went one on one with a krogan battlemaster and beat his ass silly? I gotta figure that krogan don't get pissy over that kind of thing, but actually respect the alien who managed to do it. This would lead to some possible contracts the Blood Pack might make with Massani, thus the new recruitment mission.**

**Another thing, I have no idea if a sangheili's immune system is that strong and I really don't care what cannon might be. I plan on screwing a little with Halo cannon anyway (nothing severe, and nothing that would affect the Halo games, I assure you).**

**And thirdly, that last bit about Emile being the God of Vengeance in whatever passes as batarian religion, that's just to put some perspective on how damn well known Emile is among the batarians after his fighting in the war. Plus it sounded cool in my head.**

**Lastly, and this really doesn't have much to do with the story, did you know tungsten has a higher tensile strength than titanium? Weird, huh? Of course titanium still has the highest strength to weight ratio, but tungsten is stronger.**

**I know I said I was done with the comments on the story, but one more. I was thinking about Grunt's recruitment mission, or more accurately, what Warlord Okeer did to Grunt's DNA. I have to think that Okeer would have kept up on Emile, made some shifty deals to get his medical records, and discovered his augmentations. In short, what do you guys think about an augmented krogan? He'll be as strong as Emile in his MJOLNIR, be able to handle the kickback of the Sledgehammer (so glad I finally just named the damn thing) and be as fast, both running speed and reaction time. I want your opinion so, please, answer in the comments.**

**Review, don't want to write, what you don't want to read.**


	35. Fun Times Part II

**Finally I've gotten around to writing this next chapter. Sorry about the wait, final's are coming up, right about now, actually, and with my new job I've been working three to midnight damn near every night, sometimes two to two, those suck. Anyway, mixed response on the whole augmented krogan deal, but I've decided to go with it, because fuck you I want to. I will take into consideration one reviewer's suggestion, HonorGuardElite I believe it was, and make his augmentations different from Emile's, similar, but different.**

**Obviously I won't be telling you what augmentation's he's getting this chapter, partially because that mission is in two chapters, partially because I haven't worked out what they will be yet, or how effective they are.**

**This chapter will be the finale of three recruitment missions, Zaeed, Garrus, and Mordin Solus. I do believe we left off with the Blood Pack getting ready to attack Garrus and Emile. Zaeed, Miranda, and Jacob were fighting off waves of Eclipse, and Voro was in the middle of arguing with Mordin Solus when the air ducts shut off.**

CRACK!

"That's twenty, Commander!" Garrus boasted over the comm. as another Blood Pack merc fell to the ground missing a rather generous portion of his head.

"HGH! RAAGH! That's twenty five, Claws! And another door shut!"

Garrus chuckled as he lined up another shot on a krogan warrior pushing the vorcha ahead of him, "So that leaves only one left, eh?"

"Sure does, how's it lookin up there?"

CRACK!

"Scoped and dropped, Commander, scoped and dropped," the turian replied, another krogan falling to the ground.

Garrus slid the magazine of eight thermal clips out of his M-100 'Finger of God' or FOG, sniper rifle to slam another one home at the bottom of the rifle. But instead of turning the sniper against the vorcha, the maroon armored turian propped the weapon against the windowsill and picked up his trusty M-15 Vindicator battle rifle to pick apart the weaker vorcha scattered over the connecting bridge.

A standard M-15 Vindicator cycled through thermal clips just as any other weapon would, the advanced and hyper powerful M-100 included, but thanks to the turian's time aboard the Normandy, Garrus, with a little help from his favorite human Ashley, had managed to install an internal cycler. He still had to manually 'reload' the battle rifle, but it did leave more room for thermal clips for his FOG.

_Damnit, Ash is gonna be pissed the next time I see her,_ Garrus thought, concerned for the future health of his reproductive organs. Thirty minutes before the arrival of the Spartan, Garrus had composed a short vid-mail to the human marine, confident he wasn't going to survive. She most likely had it by now, aboard Spirits knows what ship she was serving aboard, and probably wouldn't be very impressed by Garrus' life choices since he'd last seen her face to face two months ago. Nevertheless, the thought of his feisty human girlfriend made the turian just a little more determined to get through this alive.

BOOM!

The entire building shook as something in the sublevels exploded, _assuming Emile's stunts don't kill me first!_

"Emile, what the fuck is going on down there!"

"Sorry bout that, Claws. A bunch of krogan mercs were bull rushing the last shutter from a narrow hall so I used my nade launcher and a special C12 round," Emile explained in the same voice a child would use to explain why his bicycle was at the bottom of a lake.

Garrus was not impressed, "C12? I'm shocked the building didn't collapse!"

"I assure you, most of the explosive force was absorbed by the krogan paste now coating the walls down here. Last shutter's shut, how you doin up there?"

Garrus shredded another vorcha's head with his Vindicator, adding another corpse to the pile of bodies on the bridge. There weren't as many as before, however, mostly thanks to the Blood Pack mercs just shoving the bodies to the side and off the bridge as they just charged Archangel just as foolishly as the Eclipse mercs had.

"Doing fine, Commander, thirty seven, by the way."

Garrus smiled a genuine smile as he heard Emile mutter something about 'unfair circumstances' that led to the turian having the higher kill count. The smile turned into an expression of worry though, as another explosion rocked the structure, this one coming from much closer.

"Commander, get up here as quickly as possible, Garm found a way around and he and a bunch of krogan are inside the building!"

"Comin Claws!"

"Hurry," was all Garrus had to say as he swung his FOG down the hallway leading to his perch, blowing a hole through the cranial ridge of the first krogan up the stairs. The rifle automatically ejected the hot thermal clip and slammed a new one into position to absorb ninety five percent of the thermal energy about to be produced by the next shot.

CRACK!

Another krogan warrior fell…

CRACK!

And another…

CRACK!

This time the krogan warrior was pushed just before Garrus could pull the trigger, resulting in the round soaring over the back of the prone reptile. The turian was about to shift his aim to the exposed hump of the prone krogan, the hump being where a large portion of the alien's secondary organs are located, but movement appeared in his scope as an unusually large krogan encased in a biotic field charged him.

Garrus, thinking and moving quickly, rolled to the side as the couch he had been using for cover disintegrated as the huge krogan slammed through it into the steel wall behind it. The krogan, not fazed by the fact he had just slammed his head into six inches of steel, laughed as he turned to face Archangel.

"What's so funny Garm? You do realize you're just looking into a mirror right?" the turian vigilante joked while slotting a few more thermal clips into his rifles magazine, intent on having a full eight rounds to deal with the giant krogan menace in the room with him.

"I knew it, Archangel. I just knew it would come down to me and you, RAAGH!"

Garrus dodged the krogan who destroyed yet another piece of furniture. The former C-Sec agent spun around and prepared to let a round loose into the krogan but found the rifle knocked out of his hands and the krogan bearing down on him.

A well placed kick to the middle of the reptile's massive chest kept the distance, letting Garrus back to his feet. In the back ground Garrus could hear the pained screams of dying krogan and vorcha supplemented with the occasional sonic boom of Emile's shotgun.

_Hurry!_ Garrus silently pleaded as he sidestepped another vicious attack from Garm. The turian's retaliation consisted of several kicks and punches that would have left most enemy combatants wheezing and begging for air, but Garm just chuckled some more.

"You're not much without that rifle of yours, eh Archangel? You can't even hurt me without it!"

"I don't have to hurt you, just have to wait until he does," Garrus remarked flippantly, pointing over Garm's shoulder to the towering monster standing in the doorway.

The huge krogan turned towards the even larger human, "So… you're the one that has Tarak shitting his pants out there! I must say, I'm not impr- ACK!"

Emile had surged forward, putting his massive right hand on the krogan's fleshy throat and hoisting the eight hundred pound krogan into the air. Garm gasped and thrashed against the steel grip of the Spartan, but Emile holds by bringing his left hand into the equation.

The Spartan reared his head back and smashed his nigh indestructible visor into the krogan's head, cracking Garm's headplate and causing a few trickles of orange blood to leak out. Another smash caused the orange liquid to spray over the room and a final smash crushed the krogan's head, sending skull fragments splintering through the brain.

Emile dropped the lifeless reptile to the ground, "Funny, I was about to tell you the same thing," he remarked, referring to what the krogan battlemaster was about to say to the super soldier.

"So…" Garrus began, "What's the score?"

…

Voro surged forward, grabbing the flamethrower's nozzle and squeezing it shut while grabbing the fuel pack with his other huge hand, ripping it off, and throwing the napalm filled mechanism towards a cluster of vorcha led by a couple of large krogans.

As the sangheili twisted the vorcha's neck with a sickening snap, one of the krogan caught the fuel pack and laughed, "It has to have a breach to explode, stupid pyjak!"

Instead of responding, the hulking saurian leveled one of his wrist mounted energy daggers at the fuel tank, sent a surge of plasma through the emitters which sent a small bolt of plasma streaking out from his wrist into the fuel tank. Voro didn't bother looking behind him as he moved on towards the life support controls. The pained screams of flaming vermin followed him up the stairs and around the corner.

Voro still wasn't sure what had happened back in the clinic. He was attempting to recruit Doctor Mordin Solus for the Spartan's latest mission when the life support system in the slums died. The salarian had begun speaking in short, rapid sentences, leaving Voro with only small bits of information. Something about how he needed to inject the cure into the ventilation system, then turn the fans on and find his assistant, David or something, all human names sounded the same.

Speaking of Drake or whatever his name was, Voro could hear a human voice along with several batarian voices coming from the room next to him. The huge sangheili opened the door and stood in the entrance, fully decloaked, "I would let the human go, weaklings."

The lead batarian, the one pointing the weapon at… Daniel? Didn't turn to look at the newcomer, but assumed it was a krogan due to the impossibly deep voice and guttural sound, "This human is spreading the plague! He has vials of liquid with him!"

Voro rolled his eyes at the batarian, not that the pathetic humanoid could see it and responded, "Did it not occur to you that the cure would also come in small vials of liquid? Or that the man had come from the clinic where they were working on a cure, tell me, batarian, do you even possess higher brain functions?"

Finally, the lead batarian turned to look at the newcomer and was struck speechless just as his companions were, dropping the pistol he had held to the human's head, allowing Voro to swing his plasma repeater from his back, sending burning bolts of plasma into each of the four awestruck batarians. The plasma vaporized the muscle tissue, charred the bones, and flash boiled the organs inside their body, making the fraction of a second before death feel to the batarians more like fifty years of excruciating pain.

The small human… Greg? That's a human name right? Yes, yes of course that is what his name is! Or is it? Anyway, the small human, who still hadn't seen Voro, finally looked away from his cowering, "Y-you killed them all!"

Voro blinked at the anger in the pitiful boy's voice, "Of course I did, now, get back to the clinic, Dr. Solus requires your assistance."

The human rounded angrily on Voro, "We'll just see what Dr. Solus has to say about thi…"

The small human stopped in shock as his eyes fell upon Voro's back as the sangheili left the room. Assistant Daniels could hardly believe what he had just seen, that _thing_ was huge! Bigger than any krogan he'd ever seen, and why would Mordin let such a monster run around the ward?

Deciding to get answers from the doctor himself, Daniels took off back towards the clinic.

…

"Gravity's one mean mutha!" Jacob growled under his breath as he flung an Eclipse merc into the ceiling before dropping onto his comrades. The former Corsair pumped his Scimitar, cycling a new thermal clip into place, and let loose a series of napalm laced shots, stripping the barriers from three nearby Eclipse mercs before ripping through their bodies and cooking their flesh.

A few meters away, Zaeed Massani aimed his strangely powerful Mattock at a group of asari vanguards, easily stripping their barriers and punching through their foreheads. The aftermath of his shots was another curious quality as instead of the usual neat holes left by the standard mass accelerator round, Zaeed's Mattock usually tore the head from the shoulders, ripped organs through exit wounds in the torso and generally severed limbs from the body.

In fact, Jacob was fairly sure he saw the grizzled old mercenary slip an old styled ballistic clip into the weapon earlier. It was thin, like it belonged to an old MP5 sub machinegun, but that didn't make sense, why would bullets be more powerful against biotic barriers?

"Kid, get your head back in the game!" the merc's rough voice cried out before being drowned out in a hail of mass accelerator rounds and the guttural response of Zaeed's much larger rounds piercing the air. The thirty caliber slugs smacked into the kinetic barriers of the human mercs, their larger mass overloading the barrier's emitters allowing the following shot to punch straight the weak ceramic armor and cut through the organs, spraying blood and guts upon exit.

Jacob saw the older man's shields weaken under the strain and called upon his biotics again, summoning a barrier of pure dark energy between the two and the company of mercs.

Zaeed took a couple of potshots through the barrier and was rewarded with the dying scream of a salarian before rounding on Jacob, "God damnit kid! Get your fuckin arse back in bloody cover the next time you wanna look at my gun!"

Jacob was about to respond but the older man just walked away, grumbling about 'goddamn rookies'.

"Well, looks like you've made an impression," a haughty female voice said from behind.

"Don't worry Miranda, won't happen again."

"It better not, we need Mr. Massani, and being unimpressive may just cause him to drop our contract."

Jacob's face grimaced at the thought of having the merc along, "Why are we bringing a merc along anyway? All he care's about is money, he'll probably just bail as soon as he figures out it's a suicide mission."

Miranda turned to look over at the grizzled veteran who was rifling through some thermal clips and his ballistic magazines as he prepared for the next wave of mercs, "He's already been informed, Jacob. He's fully aware of the risks involved."

Jacob looked back at the mercenary in question who had moved on to count his grenades, "Then why'd he accept? He's been a merc for years, practically since the First Contact War."

"Actually, it was literally directly after the First Contact War, Kid," the grizzled merc corrected from his post, "and we got another wave of Eclipse comin in, looks big, probably the last one."

Jacob looked back to Miranda who just shrugged and moved back to her perch from which she had been providing accurate support with both her Locust and her not inconsiderable biotics.

"Here they come! Hit em with a shockwave, Kid!"

Jacob, not happy about taking orders from a mercenary, nevertheless fired up his biotics and launched a series of dark energy pockets at the feet of the incoming Eclipse mercs before exploding them, flinging any nearby soldiers off their feet and knocking down others that were a little farther away. Many mercenaries died from being flung head first into the ceiling, others still suffered broken arms, legs, and ribs, putting them out of combat.

Unfortunately, the Eclipse made up for their sudden disadvantage with numbers and about forty mercs out made it through unscathed and another ten were still easily combat capable.

Of course that advantage still didn't last long as Zaeed poked out of cover and took aim. Each shot sounded like a guttural bark and even produced a mild shockwave that thumped anyone within three feet of the barrel, though the .30 caliber conical slugs did far more damage to the targets than the thump.

Sixteen shots and Zaeed pops the magazine, which automatically popped the thermal clip as well, cutting the work in half for the merc as he easily slid the new magazine in as the rifle automatically shoved the next thermal clip into place.

The rifle barrel shifted, barked twice, and another asari vanguard fell to the ground missing a rather large portion of her skull. Another two barks, and two salarians crumple to the ground, their thin chests blown open by the relatively huge rounds.

Jacob continued to use his biotics to his advantage as several salarians were thrown into the air, prime targets for Miranda's biotics as they were soon tossed into the steel walls of Omega's hallways.

Still, the numbers of the Eclipse mercs were staggering, at least to the three non super soldiers, and the three soon found themselves under heavy fire. Of course, Zaeed Massani is always prepared, "Have a taste, would ya?!"

One fragmentation grenade and another incendiary grenade popped over his cover, rolled to the feet of an asari commando, and exploded, sending blue cooked pieces of meat flying and shredding several nearby mercenaries.

At the distraction, Zaeed quickly popped out of cover, indicating to the others to do the same, and targeted the leaders of the remaining mercs. The larger rounds of his specialized Mattock ripping heads from bodies as the concentrated biotics combined to form explosions of dark energy through the ranks of the Eclipse, forcing the thirty soldiers to break formation and sprint for cover, making even easier targets for the excellent marksmanship of Zaeed Massani.

Soon the mercs were cut down to twenty and most had run off, leaving only five mercs actually sticking around, unfortunately, one of those five left was an incredibly powerful asari commando and the leader of this particular company of Eclipse, and she was incredibly pissed.

"I'LL DO THIS MYSELF!"

As soon as she had said it a torrent of dark energy slammed into Zaeed's cover, ripping it away and tossing the grizzled mercenary. Miranda attempted to stem the tide, throwing a series of warps into the asari's biotic barrier, but failed to make any real headway before the stream of biotic power turned towards her, quickly ripping away her cover and forcing the weaker biotic back as Miranda feebly held on to a barrier to divert the stream.

Next, Jacob grabbed the asari's attention, but in a much more suicidal fashion as he charged the blue woman from her blind spot and tackled her to the ground. Once there, the ex-Corsair began a short melee in an attempt to incapacitate the commando as quickly as possible.

He remembered his previous failure with such a method however, and decided to switch where he hit. Instead of striking the obvious face, the former marine gave an uppercut to lift back the chin and expose the throat for the fatal blow.

Jacob hoisted himself off the choking asari, wiping the blue/purple blood off of his hand as the asari choked on the rest. The blow had crushed the windpipe and the jugular had wasted no time leaking into the exposed trachea, causing the asari to choke on her blood.

"Bea'iful. Hell of a job, Kid," Zaeed complimented as he walked up to the still choking asari commando, "Personally, never thought I'd see the end a that bitch." The mercenary finished by spitting on the rapidly expiring alien.

Miranda looked between the two mercenaries, "Did you know her?"

Massani nodded in reply, "Her name's Aleya, great in bed, better in battle, but a real bitch."

Jacob frowned in barely contained disgust at the sexual reference towards the finally still asari, "Come on, I want to get off Omega as quickly as possible."

"I hear ya, Kid. Omega is an acquired taste, only your first taste tends to get ya killed."

…

"So whaddya think, Claws? Bust past some Blue Suns idiots and get back to the Normandy?"

Garrus looked up from his scavenging of Garm's body to see Emile wiping away the last of the dark orange blood and deep red brain matter from his helmet, "Tarak's got the toughest group, but let's be honest; it's nothing we haven't faced before."

Emile started to nod until a humming caught his attention. Faint at first, but coming closer, the humming was an exact match for the impulse thrusters of the washout prototype for the Sparrowhawk, a design that was sold to several merc companies to help fund the newer model.

The Spartan's sensitive hearing closed in on the sound, "GARRUS, GET DOWN!"

The super soldier slammed his half ton frame into the turian, tossing him across the room as five millimeter lead slugs shredded through the building's steel frame like paper.

"Get out in the open!" Emile roared to Garrus as the two began evading the erratic pattern of the ships only mass accelerator.

"Are you insane? Spirit's we'll be ripped apart!"

Emile grabbed the maroon armored turian and brought him down to ground level as a stream of high powered slugs ripped the air where he once was, "Trust me, they have a scrapped Sparrowhawk V2 out there. The reason it was scrapped was because of its overly sensitive aiming systems and lack of VI support. Tarak's got a better chance of hitting us in this confined building rather than out in the open, especially if we keep moving!"

Garrus nodded and he and the Spartan bolted for the bridge. Before they got there, however, four shotgun wielding turians dropped from the Sparrowhawk above them.

Emile wasted no time as his right fist burrowed into the chest of the first turian while the second was pierced through the bottom of his chin all the way to his brain by the Spartan's wicked kukri. Garrus, no slouch in close quarters combat himself, swept the leg of the left turian as he produced a large white pistol in his right hand that easily punched through the right turian's barriers in one shot with enough residual energy to pound through his skull. The turian vigilante finished off the last merc with a similar kill shot before replacing his Phalanx.

"Not a standard sidearm you'd find on Omega," Emile pointed out as he slid behind a pillar, avoiding detection from the Sparrowhawk overhead.

"Gift from Ash, a few months back I took a break from Omega for a day or two and met up with her on Illium while she was on leave. I guess her way of taking care of me is to give me a high powered pistol."

Emile barked a laugh as he peaked out from under the awning, looking straight up at the Sparrowhawk's belly, "Ain't love just a crazy thing?"

Garrus gave a lighthearted affirmative as he looked over at the barricade checking for any more Blue Suns that may try and take advantage of the two's pinned position.

"Alright Claws, here's the plan. I'm gonna plant some charges on that mutha fucka up there, at which point I expect an all out rush by the remaining Blue Suns to finally get rid of you, put their asses in the dirt," Emile ordered, feeling the usual high of a plan about to come together.

"Copy that!" Garrus replied, already lining up his first shot as a Blue Suns Centurion peeked his head over the wall.

CRACK!

As the blue blood of the turian mercenary flew, Emile surged forward, every step taking an eternity by his perspective as, for the second time that day, adrenaline poured through his veins. The Spartan raised his Individual Grenade Launcher loaded with a special grenade variant and fired, trailing a looping spool of incredibly strong wire, capable of supporting even his weight.

Thanks to the gunship's lack of barriers, which was in turn due to the Alliance's foresight to keep one step ahead of the mercenaries, the tungsten sabot pierced the Sparrowhawk's right wing and ripped through the other side where three serrated titanium claws separated from the sabot and grabbed hold of the gunship's wing.

The Spartan immediately leaped and grabbed hold of the super strong wire as the pilot attempted to lose him and easily climbed hand over hand to the Sparrowhawk's munitions bay. Emile reared one hand back as the other held on to the wing and rammed his fist through the steel frame, exposing the insides. He grabbed another sodium-nitrate explosive from his chest, primed it, and flung it inside before leaping back to the bridge.

As Emile was busy with his stunts, Garrus was quite preoccupied himself. As soon as the mercs had seen the Spartan take himself out of the equation, the mercenaries had wasted no time rushing to take out their original objective, Archangel.

The turian vigilante put his rifle into overtime, the sharp crack of his FOG sniper rifle sounding continuously. Garrus didn't bother with headshots, he had neither the time nor the need to do so, at this range, the round could strike anywhere on the body and the person hit, even a krogan, would be down for the count as blood would pour out of where their body parts once were.

The tungsten sabot rounds fired from the red hot barrel powered through even the most powerful of personal protective barriers and through several combatants at a time, especially when they all lined up like so. Even the mounds of bodies from the other failed attacks provided no reprieve as the turian's Kuwashii visor was installed with the latest VISR software program, easily picking the outlines of the cowering mercs and allowing the turian sniper to send a round through the mound of bodies and into the mercs.

Just before Emile landed on the bridge, Garrus reached for another magazine for his rifle, instead finding empty space, _Spirit's damn it!_

Fortunately, the turian need not have worried as a half ton super soldier landed on the middle of the bridge. The giant THUD of the landing followed up with an incredible BOOM as the back half of the Sparrowhawk exploded, leaving the front half to plummet into the bowels of Omega.

Emile immediately produced his two Tempests, spraying death into the momentarily stunned Blue Suns soldiers. The kickback of the Tempest is enough to force anyone to use a two handed grip on the submachine gun and even then it would be hard to control, but Emile isn't anyone and his iron like grip held the small weapons rock steady, scoring kills at twenty yards on full auto whereas anyone else would have been forced into burst firing the weapon.

Bodies fell before the super soldier; most missing large portions of their bodily fluids while others choked as blood filled their lungs and others still were dead before they hit the ground missing most of their brain. Others still fell from deadly burst fire from Archangel, the three round bursts easily penetrating their weak kinetic barriers and killing the merc behind it.

Before long the last merc, a frightened batarian, received a heavy boot to his face, easily crushing his skull, causing Emile to look around and ask, "We done here?"

Garrus looked around, "I don't remember seeing Tarak anywhere, but he may have run off."

Actually, Tarak was walking up behind the duo, through the entrance Garm had used, carrying an M-920 Cain launcher, intent on killing the God of Vengeance that had slaughtered so many batarians.

The charger spooled up, gathering red light at its entrance that went unnoticed by Archangel and Demon, before firing, right on line for the Demon.

Emile was looking over the bodies of the mercs, the bridge was a positive blood bath and the only way to even think about getting rid of the bodies was just to light the place on fire, when he heard a slight whirring. The Spartan dismissed it at first until it grew louder, matching the exact pitch of what is considered the most deadly heavy weapon ever created.

In the twenty milliseconds it took for the Spartan to react, EDI had already done the reacting for him, and as the synthetic muscle tissue of his MJOLNIR tugged at his organic ones, the Spartan spun on his heel just as the Cain round was about to reach him. The Spartan's right hand came across his body, palm cupping the left side of the round, it was moving far to fast to simply catch without having his limb ripped off, and diverted it.

To Garrus, all he saw was a white streak blaze by him and head for his best friend and how it somehow missed wildly as it suddenly shot out to the side, blasting the steel walls of Omega and that somehow, Emile was suddenly facing him even though the turian registered no movement.

"Oh shit," was all Tarak could say as he watched the Cain round lance off to the side to reveal a knife flying end over end directly at him. The twelve inch blade came in horizontally and spun blade first, landing directly on the batarian's neck. A second later, a four eyed head hit the floor and a humanoid body fell to the ground.

…

Voro growled in disgust as yet another krogan thought that charging him was the best way to take him down, it wasn't. The hulking saurian picked up the, by relation, small reptile and simply tossed him over the side railing into the spinning fan blades. A slight change in pitch, a spray of red, and the final scream was all that marked the krogan's passing.

The krogan he had come across disgusted Voro. They were all small, stupid, and weak examples of the krogan species, probably why they were sticking with the vorcha rather then the main Blood Pack mercenaries. Each just charged Voro, as though they forgot that they held guns that the vorcha also had guns, that combined fire just might cut the sangheili down, but here he was, on his way to the second fan control in the ventilation systems, under light fire that his shields easily deflected.

A flame thrower wielding vorcha jumped out from behind a corner, actually managing to get the drop on the larger alien, and let loose with his flamethrower. Voro's plasma shields blocked the intense stream of napalm long enough for the sangheili to grab the vorcha and toss him against a far wall where he exploded.

This mission had been one giant cakewalk for the veteran infiltrator. Superior shielding, superior weaponry, superior intelligence, and superior physical capabilities made this entire mission simply too easy. Heavy weapons fire or concentrated fire teams would be the only thing capable of even bringing down his shields, but the vorcha were too uncoordinated for concentrated fire, and the 'heavy' weapons the vorcha attempted to bring against him were pitiful. Rockets that would barely move fast enough to stay aloft, heavy machine guns that they couldn't even lift, and flamethrowers that were actually able to bring him down were ineffectively deployed.

The hulking saurian stood before the console of the second fan, the cure had already been injected into the system and as soon as he turned this fan on the cure would be spread amongst this ward; of course death would be a reprieve from living in this place.

Soon Voro was back in the clinic, once again causing undue stress to the people taking shelter in it. Most of the people simply backed away, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the sangheili, while some of the guards tried to look as tough as possible, which wasn't working.

A voice drifted from where he had encountered Mordin earlier, "No Mordin, I'm telling you! This thing was a monster! There's no way you would have let it through, nor would it have been capable of actual conversation. I'm sure it killed whomever you sent and just repeated what it heard…"

"If you are done insulting me, weakling, I have business to finish with the doctor," Voro interrupted.

The human lab assistant spun around at the sound of the sangheili's voice before screaming for someone to kill 'the damned monster' until Mordin stuck a syringe in his neck and jammed the plunger down.

"Mild sedative, should keep him unconscious," the salarian spoke, "Grateful you found him, overzealous perhaps but does good work. Also grateful you got fans working again, plague should dissipate. Ready to go, ready to leave."

**Well there you have it, all of the recruitment missions have been wrapped up and next chapter will be them settling into the Normandy. I may have made the lab assistant a little too whiny, but if you choose the renegade options when dealing with him he's a SUPER BITCH!**

**Zaeed's recruitment mission may have been a little bland, as was Voro's, but Zaeed's was because I was making stuff from scratch, Voro's was because I wanted to show how powerful a true sangheili is. I see a lot of people underestimating these giants and that just ain't right with me. Each adult sangheili is at least capable of matching the physical capabilities of a Spartan II but a lot of people write them off as sub-krogan, which is WRONG! Sorry, I felt like I had to say that.**

**May not be another chapter for a while, running low on inspiration. Just letting you know.**

**Review, don't want to write what you don't want to read.**


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